India’s efforts on solar capacity addition may position it as a leader in solar adoption, but its record on solar manufacturing shows it is barely scratching the surface on reducing solar imports. While the country added 60GW of solar generation capacity—the goal is 175GW renewable by 2022—it has added just 3GW of solar cell manufacturing, and 9GW of module manufacturing. Given how cheap Chinese imports are, in 2018, the government introduced a safeguard duty to prevent dumping. Now, as per a Business Standard report, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has proposed imposing a basic customs duty (BCD) of 10% on solar imports in 2021—when the safeguard duty expires. The proposal also calls for increasing the BCD to 20% in 2022, and to 30% in 2023.
