“We welcome and appreciate the Government’s announcement on the PLI Scheme. The Government has taken this step to push manufacturing in India, which is certainly the need for the country’s solar sector today.
India is the third largest solar market in the world but the country imports over 85 per cent of its panel requirements. India can no longer afford to depend on imports due to foreign exchange as well as concerns of losing huge opportunities of employment. Hence, this is a great welcome step and it will benefit our country in many ways.
Tough times
Presently, the Indian manufacturers are going through a tough time. Import duty on raw materials and cost of shipping has made the situation extremely non-viable to continue manufacturing in the country. Further, for Indian solar module manufacturers to expand their capacities, they need to sustain, which looks difficult at the moment. There will be no duty barriers for imports of solar modules from the date of SGD expiry to the date of implementation of BCD while duties on import of raw materials will continue to exist. This nine month period will have a crippling effect on domestic manufacturers, which may also lead to a shutdown of units in India and risk 300,000 jobs. So till the BCD comes into force some steps need to be implemented to aid the sustenance of domestic manufacturers. This is a humble request by the industry to our honourable ministry and we are looking forward to getting some respite.
Complete import substitution difficult
Nonetheless, one of the significant steps under the guidelines of the PLI scheme is to boost domestic manufacturing of high efficiency indigenous PV solar modules to reduce reliance on imports in the sector and generate employment opportunities. However, to completely wean off dependence on imports, the allocated fund for PLI Scheme is quite meagre and capacities expected to generate with this amount will be very less. If more funds can be sanctioned, it will allow the manufacturers to set up more units which will definitely help in contributing to the country’s GDP.”
This view expressed by Dr. Hitesh Doshi was in response to the Union Cabinet approval to the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for high-efficiency solar photovoltaic modules. (Read full story)
