Tuesday, August 19, 2014: The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has showed concern about imposing levy on imported solar cells as this could led to higher electricity prices. Several projects can also be pushed into litigation.
The Ministry wants to reserve the local content, which could be increased in the tenders, to provide relief for the domestic equipment makers. This is an alternative to hiking the duty. In May, in order to protect the struggling domestic industry, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry recommended that a restrictive duty of $0.11 to 0.81 per watt should be imposed on solar cells which are imported from the US, China, Malaysia and Taipei.
Tarun Kapoor, Joint Secretary at MNRE, told, “We are opposing it because this (proposed) anti-dumping duty is only on four countries. This will push up the price of power and state governments are opposing also because they want to buy cheap power.” He also commented that there is a possibility that all the awarded tenders may be pushed into litigation as the companies will not be able to deliver if this higher anti-dumping duty is imposed. Kapoor noted, “… Almost 3,000 MW which is in the pipeline, tenders by the state, tenders by the centre, they will all go in litigation and domestic guys may still not get any orders.”
When MNRE is trying to strengthen the renewable energy sector in the country, including from solar sources, this higher duty proposal has entered the scenario, which is expected to have a huge negative impact on the domestic industry. He said, “We are not supporting anti-dumping duty and we are supporting a domestic reservation policy we already have… That is the best method to support them because with anti- dumping (duty) people can still import from countries like Japan or Korea or some other countries. We feel that we can increase the quantity for the domestic content so that the domestic guy gets enough order.” Many domestic solar manufacturers have already showed their concerns about the dumping of cheap solar cells into India.
