“All states and ports are requested to identify land parcels of 50-500 acres for setting up renewable energy manufacturing and export services hub,” said Anand Kumar, secretary, MNRE, in a twitter post recently
New Delhi: In a bid to minimise the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the heavily import-dependent domestic solar industry, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has asked state and port authorities to identify land sites suitable for renewable energy manufacturing and export services hubs.
“All states and ports are requested to identify land parcels of 50-500 acres for setting up renewable energy manufacturing and export services hub,” said Anand Kumar, secretary, MNRE, in a twitter post recently.
In an earlier tweet, Kumar had said that the ministry would provide full support to companies planning to expand or set-up bases in India for manufacturing and export of services in the renewable energy sector.
Many solar industry executives have been saying that the pandemic and its resultant lockdown will impact their business operations in the future. Hence, this step comes as a relief as far as local manufacturing of renewables is concerned.
The ministry has also extended the deadline for the approved list of models and manufacturers by six months to provide some relief to renewable energy firms that are under stress due to the COVID-19 crisis. The earlier deadline was March 31.
The Economic Times in a report last week had said that the government has no plans to slash its target of achieving 175 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity in the country by 2022 in the wake of the virus outbreak and the nationwide lockdown.
Source: energy.economictimes.indiatimes
