Sri Lanka has rejected India’s offer to set up solar energy plants at Sampur in Eastern Sri Lanka, reports New Indian Express. The Indian offer had been by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC  summit in Goa earlier this month.

The Secretary to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Power, Suren Batagoda, told Express on Thursday, that the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) will execute the solar power project at Sampur, and India will set up a 500 MW power plant at Kerawelapatiya near Colombo on the West coast using Liquefied Natural Gas as the fuel.

The government-owned Daily News had reported that the CEB engineers had wanted to do the solar power project themselves. Government has now given its consent to this proposal.

India had offered to do the solar power projects as it has emerged as the leader for the Global Solar Energy Alliance floated by Prime Minister Modi along with the French President in 2015. India has an ambitious target to install 175GW of renewable energy by 2020 and make renewable energy sources account for 40 percent of the power produced by 2030. 

When Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had put up solar plants to generate 500 MW.