Power Ministry of India seeks to thwart dumping duty on solar imports

FIRST WIND

The Power Ministry of India is seeking to ditch the proposal to impose antidumping duties on imported solar cells, says a report in livemint.

Import duty, according to officials at the Ministry, would undermine the new government’s plans for implementing solar power in the country.

Currently India is on a mission to achieve solar capacity addition of 10,000 MW by 2017 through the second phase of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM). While the current solar power capacity of the country is 2,600 MW, government hopes to cross 20,000 MW by 2022.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal said the Ministry has requested the Commerce Ministry and Finance Ministry to reconsider the decision.

“As things stand today, India doesn’t have adequate manufacturing capacity to support the kind of thrust we want to give to solar,” Goyal said.


first windAnti-dumping discussions have always been controversial. Soon after the new Ministry took charge, the Commerce Ministry proposed anti-dumping duty of up to USD 0.81 per watt on solar cells imported from the US, Malaysia, China and Chinese Taipei following complaints by domestic players.

However a few days later, Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari asked Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to scrap the proposal to impose anti- dumping duty on solar power gear imports   saying the levy will double the cost of the equipment.

Official sources also confirm that the proposed tariffs, ranging from 11 cents to 81 cents per watt, will cause the price of the imported panels from the U.S., China, Malaysia and Taiwan to more than double. Panels from these countries account for more than 80 percent of the photovoltaic capacity in India.

The Ministry of Finance has been given time until 22 August to implement the duties, which were recommended by the commerce ministry four days before the new government under the leadership of Narendra Modi took over.

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