With a view to protect domestic manufacturers, India has initiated a probe to determine imposition of safeguard duty on surging imports of solar cells. Domestic manufacturers have approached the Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) with a complaint that their sales and market share has more or less remained constant in recent years, despite rapid expansion in demand for solar cells in India. The domestic players had a market share of 13% in 2014-15, which is estimated to fall to 7% during 2017-18. The domestic industry has also asked the DGS for imposition of provisional safeguard duty in view of steep deterioration in the performance of the local players as a result of increased imports of the solar cells.
Solar cells, electrical devices that convert sunlight directly into electricity, are imported primarily from China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. The petition for imposition of the import restrictive duty was submitted by Indian Solar Manufacturers Association (ISMA) on behalf of five Indian producers - Mundra Solar PV, Indosolar, Jupiter Solar Power, Websol Energy Systems and Helios Photo Voltaic. They want safeguard duty on ‘solar cells whether or not assembled in modules or panels’ immediately for four years. The DGS said the application has been examined and it has been found that prima facie the increased imports of the product have caused and are threatening to inflict serious injury on the domestic industry.
Imports of solar cell are estimated to increase from 1,275 MW in 2014-15 to 9,331 MW at March-end 2017. The domestic production was 246 MW in 2014-15 and is likely to increase to 1,164 MW in 2017-18. Besides, the government is targeting 100 Giga Watt (GW) of solar power capacity by 2022. The current installed capacity is about 15 GW. The government would auction 20 GW capacities by March 2018, and it will auction 30 GW in next year and another 30 GW in the subsequent year.
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