India plans to spend around 50 billion rupees (£509m) on rooftop solar projects in the next five years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet increased the funding from an initial budget of six billion rupees to encourage householders, government bodies, hospitals and educational institutions to install the renewable technology.

It is part of the government’s National Solar Mission, which aims to support the installation of 4,200MW of rooftop solar systems by 2020.

That is expected to contribute towards India’s target of installing 40GW of capacity by 2022.

The funding won’t however be available for commercial and industrial projects in the private sector.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy stated: “With the new initiative, India will emerge as a major country utilising the roof space for solar rooftop systems on such a large scale. This 40GW will result in abatement of about 60 million tonnes of CO2 per year and will help to fulfill the commitment of India towards its contribution in mitigating the effect of climate change.”

Earlier this month India and France launched an international solar alliance at the COP21 conference in Paris where world leaders agreed on a deal to tackle climate change.