The Andhra Pradesh government has gone out of its way to help a Chinese solar firm Hereon Solar Private Limited (HSPL) to open its manufacturing unit in Vizag. The state government amended certain criteria so that the company can avail certian incentives. Moreover, the government will also provide land for outright sale, instead of 99-year lease to the company.
The State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB) has cleared the proposal of the company to set up multi-crystalline solar photovoltaic cells manufacturing unit in Vizag. HSPL is a joint venture firm of Hareon Solar of China and Dalmia Bharat Group of India.
The major change that SIPB amended was that the criteria in the generic package of incentives extended for solar equipment manufacturing industries got replaced in the ‘250 MW-500 MW’ category with ‘100 MW-500 MW’ category with a minimum investment of Rs 100 crore.
The company will be investing Rs 1,188 crore in the plant and will also employ 1,162 people. The initial capacity of plant would be 160 MW which will be ramped up to 1,000 MW in the next three years.
The company has been allotted around 33 acres in Achyuthapuram along with Trina Solar, another Chinese firm in the same area.
By Atanu Kumar Das
