EQ’s Webinar: Impact on Indian PV Manufacturers of Duty Free Import Period and BCD Not Yet Gazetted – Opportunities & Challenges

EQ International presented a webinar on July 29, 2021, to discuss the impact on Indian PV manufacturers of duty free import period from July end to March 1, 22.

Basic Customs Duty (BCD) announced by the Government of India as 40% duty on modules and 25% on cells that has also not been gazetted yet that is causing worry among manufacturers. Considering the way the market is reacting, new module manufacturers are emerging and a lot of existing manufacturers and a lot of existing module manufacturers are expanding their capacities.

Rajesh Singh, Vice President-Operations, RenewSys India Pvt Ltd participated as moderator. The speakers of the session included Manish Gupta, Director- Insolation Energy; Prashant Mathur, Chief Executive Officer- Saatvik Green Energy (P) Ltd, Neeraj Tiwari, Asst. Marketing Manager, Pixon Energy, Girishkumar Kadam, Senior Vice President & Co-Group Head, Corporate Sector Ratings- ICRA and Yugesh Kathutia, Functional Sales Head, Pennar Industries Ltd.

Introducing the topic, Rajesh Singh said, “Today, we are at a juncture where we all are confused on what is going to happen and what we need to do.” Safeguard duty (SGD) was implemented in July 2018 for the period of two years with the starting tariff of 25% with the plan of reducing it by 5% every month which ended in July 2020. The government extended it for one more year at the request of the industry with a tariff of 14.9 for the first six months and 14.5% for the following six months which ended on July 29, 2021.

Sharing data on the benefit of SDG to industry, Rajesh Singh informed, India had imported around 4.2 billion equivalent materials (solar cell and modules) from various countries, the majority from China, in the year 2017 which came down drastically to 2.7 billion in 2018 and 2.3 billion in 2019. The imports further dropped down steeply to 0.5 billion in 2020 given that majority was also contributed by COVID.

Panellists discussed their views on the issue, the impact on the industry and the possible solutions. Also, the webinar discussed opportunities and challenges, non-tariff barriers, export market, the effectiveness of BCD and more. Manish Gupta, Director, Insolation Energy said, “We need to unite ourselves as module manufacturers or cell manufacturers and give regular representation as per our requirement for the future safety and prosperousness. We must spare our time and sit with the competent authorities in the state or central government.”