At the 25th Executive Committee (ExCom) meeting of the Montreal Protocol, it was decided to provide a grant-in-aid for four more projects in India. BPL Refrigeration Ltd, Malhotra Shaving Products Ltd, Prashant Refrigeration Appliances and Sandeep Refrigeration will receive funds towards the development of substitutes for ODS. The necessary funds will be provided by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
BPL Refrigerators will use the aid to replace the use of CFC-11 and CFC-12 with hydrochloro-flurocarbon-141b (HCFC-141b) and HFC-134a while manufacturing domestic refrigerators. Sandeep Refrigeration will eliminate the use of CFCs and Prashant Refrigeration will replace CFC-11 and CFC-12 with HCFC-141b and HFC-134 during the manufacture of commercial refrigeration equipment. Malhotra Shaving Products will utilise the assistance to convert precision cleaning and coating processes from ODS solvents to heat-cleaning technologies and ODS-free solvent coatings.
Ten private sector enterprises in the foam sector will receive assistance worth nearly US$1.05 million from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for phasing out the use of 137 tonnes of environment degrading CFCs. Agreements were signed in New Delhi between the Ministry of Environment & Forests and UNDP. Projects approved through UNDP till April 1998 are scheduled to phase out the use of 1,096 tonnes of ODS, supported by grant assistance now totalling about US$11.6 million.