MoP at odds with proposal of Commerce Ministry on imposing solar duties
Power minister Mr. Piyush Goyal has reportedly given a statement which goes against the proposal of Ministry of Commerce to impose solar duties on imported equipments. An article in Bloomberg says that as per Mr. Goyal, solar duties will undermine PM’s vision of fostering solar generation in the country. He adds that India currently doesn’t have adequate solar manufacturing capacity to catch up with national targets. India’s transport minister Mr. Nitin Gadkari also holds same views.
The decision must have brought a lot of cheer to lobby and industry associations striving hard against imposition of such duties. A background of the case is detailed below –
Background –
Directorate general of anti-dumping & allied duties (DGAD) under Ministry of commerce and Industry had recommended to impose steep anti-dumping duties on import of solar products like US, China, Malaysia, Taiwan etc. By such levy of duties, DGAD wants to secure favourable market condition for domestic solar manufacturing cos. The DGAD has recognized that despite huge potential of manufacturing, India has negligible capacity operational. To bolster the fate of Indian solar equipment manufacturers, India had introduced DCR in NSM, but following a dispute with US at WTO, some other means to check dumping was required.
Although DGAD paid heed to complaints raised by Indian manufacturing association, many solar experts across India fear that imposing of such duties is going to adversely affect the growth of solar sector in India. Intense lobbying against such a decision has been observed. MNRE is also voting against imposing anti-dumping duties.
It is expected that anti-dumping duties are going to make projects selected under open category of NSM also unviable. On the flip side, Indian manufacturing still lags on technological front and the quality of products domestically manufactured is inferior to their imported counterparts. Solar power developers argue that both quality and price is going to be affected if the Min. of Commerce & Industry favours levy of anti-dumping charges.
Recent media articles can be accessed –