Solar equipment can be expensive, government expressed intent to impose custom duty

Solar equipment can be expensive, government expressed intent to impose custom duty

The government may soon impose custom duty on solar equipment. The New and Re-Nouble Energy Ministry has asked solar manufacturers to provide a list of machinery and capital goods, which cannot be subjected to basic custom duty. With this move of the government, such speculations are being made, custom duty can be imposed on solar equipment.

Domestic solar equipment manufacturers will increase difficulty
The Ministry of New and Re-Nuclear Energy has held talks with the Finance Ministry and the Heavy Industry Ministry in this regard. Officials of domestic solar equipment manufacturers have expressed happiness over the government's intention as it will help them to face the dumping of Chinese solar equipment. Domestic solar equipment manufacturers had long been expected to impose duties on imported solar equipment.

The Minister of Power and Renewable Energy had said that basic customs duty could be imposed from August 1 to prevent domestic equipment manufacturers from dumping Chinese solar equipment. However, this may increase the difficulties of domestic manufacturers as 80 percent of the equipment is sourced from outside.

Chef Guard duty was imposed on solar cells and modules in 2018
The government had earlier imposed chefguard duty to stop solar cells and modules in 2018, which ended in July this year. In such a situation, the government has announced imposition of 20 percent custom duty. Many domestic solar panel vendors believe that this may make solar energy generation difficult as the government has set a target of producing 100 GHz solar energy by 2022. India is the world's most consumed solar energy after America and China. The country has a solar power generation capacity of 3 GW, India imported about $ 2.16 billion worth of solar photovoltaic cell panels and modules in the year 2018-19.