The government has increased the import duty on solar equipment holds back basic custom duty to promote domestic manufacturing in the solar industry.
To promote domestic solar manufacturing, the government proposed to raise import duty on solar inverters and lanterns or lamps but did not impose the basic customs duty on same.
On this proposal, The Solar Power Developers Association had requested to government to postpone the plan to impose basic custom duty (BCD) on solar equipment for the time being, as this could be affected India’s year 2022 renewables energy target of 175 GW, which include 100 GW of solar energy. Because still, Solar developers depend heavily on solar equipment imports due to the limited production capacity of domestic industry.
To present the budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “We have already acknowledged that solar energy has huge promise for India. To build up domestic capacity, we will notify a phased manufacturing plan for solar cells and solar panels. At present, to encourage domestic production, we are raising duty on solar invertors from 5% to 20%, and on solar lanterns from 5% to 15%.”
As per industry gauges, as much as ₹1.75 lakh crore venture is needed to offer out 35GW of renewable energy capacity in the country. Around 50 GW of clean energy is under implementation, while India has just introduced over 90GW renewables, including 37GW of solar and 38GW of wind energy.
The finance minister advised the House that to give a further lift to the non-conventional energy sector, the government has proposed to provide the additional capital infusion of ₹1,000 crore to Solar Energy Corporation of India and ₹1,500 crores to the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency.
Resource Live Mint
Click Here for more updates Ornatesolar.com
Leave A Comment