Power Minister Piyush Goyal has said the Centre will provide assistance of Rs 1,800 crore to IIT-Bombay for its Solar Urja Lamp (SoUL) programme.

Under the programme, the institution will disseminate solar lamps to 10 crore school children across the country.

"The mission commissioned with distributing 10 lakh solar lamps to school children. Now, we want IIT Bombay to scale up the program to 10 crore students across the country. MNRE will provide the required financial support of Rs 1,800 crore for this mission," Goyal was quoted as saying in a release issued by IIT.

The objective of this program is to provide clean light for study purpose to every child in the country in the fastest and most costeffective manner. For this, IIT Bombay partnered with NGOs having presence at grass-root level, it said.