India to increase import duty on solar equipment in coming years: Power Minister

09 Aug 2019 Evaluate

In a view to encourage domestic manufacturing, Power Minister Raj Kumar has said India would increase import duty on solar equipment down the value chain in the coming years. Allaying fears that any hike in import duty may increase solar energy tariff bidding rate, the minister assured that it will not impact solar energy bidding process in India. Besides, he also said that a power storage policy will be unveiled soon. The policy will provide tax incentives, especially for solar equipment manufacturing in India. The government is encouraging storage segment to push renewables as well as electric mobility.

In July last year, India had imposed a safeguard duty on imports of solar cells from China and Malaysia for two years to protect domestic players from steep rise in inbound shipments of the product. India had imposed 25% safeguard duty on solar cells for July 30, 2018 to July 29, 2019 period. Now, it has come down to 20% for July 30, 2019 to January 29, 2020. It will further come down to 15% during January 30, 2020 to July 29, 2020.

There has been a significant increase in imports of solar cells in absolute terms. Imports of cells jumped to 9,790 MW in 2017-18 from 1,275 MW in 2014-15. India produced 842 MW solar cells in 2017-18. Certain domestic players had claimed that on account of the surge in imports of the cells, many domestic producers have kept their production facilities almost idle and the heavy losses have crippled the domestic industry.

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