Hosted the Project Management Unit and acted as local executing partner, coordinating CST work with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission and MNRE's own subsidy programmes, and managing the relationship with IREDA on the scale-up credit line. MNRE withdrew from execution in January 2021; the project was subsequently transferred to the Ministry of MSME in December 2021. MNRE continues as a Steering Committee member.

A Navratna Government of India enterprise under MNRE, established in 1987 as a Non-Banking Financial Institution to finance renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Under Phase 1, IREDA operated a concessional credit line for CST scale-up projects in partnership with MNRE and UNIDO.

Partner for the project's largest installed capacity to date: thirteen CST installations across dairy processing sites, commissioned in 2018, demonstrating solar process heat for pasteurisation and cleaning at scale.

State nodal agency and host cooperative for the project's first CST demonstration — a compound parabolic concentrator system serving the cocoon boiling process at a silk reeling unit in Dehradun, commissioned in 2017 and operated throughout by women workers.

Host for a small-scale CST instructional system established to support practical, hands-on training for manufacturers, suppliers, installers and maintenance staff.

The original host of the project's CST microsite, established under UNIDO's Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development knowledge portal before the project moved to its own domain.

Four industry consultations shaped the project design: CII Coimbatore Chapter, the Ahmedabad Textile Mills Association, the Baddi-Barotiwala Nalagarh Industrial Association and the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The three barriers they identified — awareness, technical confidence and payback — still frame the project's strategy today.