During the Union Budget 2022-23 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared additional funding of ₹19,500 crores to enhance solar PV module production under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.
Intending to increase the solar capacity in the country, Finance Minister has said that ₹19,500 crores will be given under PLI for manufacturing high-efficiency modules for polysilicon. “To support domestic manufacturing of solar panels for meeting the target of 280GW of installed solar capacity by 2030, ₹19,500 Crore for Production Linked Incentive for high-efficiency modules with priority to fully integrated units will be made in 2022-23,” Sitharaman said.
Nikunj Ghodawat, CFO, CleanMax, on Budget 2022, said, “It’s a reasonably balanced budget not influenced by the upcoming Elections. The Higher allocation for government capex is good news. While the high-level emphasis on clean energy was very encouraging but no major announcement, except the PLI scheme which benefits only solar manufacturers and nothing much for Renewable energy developers. Direction for simplifying tax litigation is a good sign, though need to see its fine print and how it gets implemented. Also, there was no major change indirect tax.”
Last year, in April 2021, the government had declared a Rs 4,500 crore PLI proposal to increase the domestic production of solar PV modules.
Mr N Venu, MD & CEO, India & South Asia, Hitachi Energy said, “India delivered a pro-growth budget with a significant push to capital expenditure to boost the supply side and attract private investment. The government appears to have had its ears to the ground and covered a vast gamut of sectors in its four priority areas — PM Gati Shakti, Inclusive Development, Climate Action, and Energy Transition. Intentions have been clear – steer India toward sustainable development with a strong focus on financial support to MSMEs and expansion of emerging sectors such as solar power, EV infrastructure, railways, data centres.”
Moreover, efforts will be made to irrigate 9.0 lakh hectares of farmland, to provide drinking facilities to 62 lakh people and for the generation of 103 MW hydropower and 27 MW of solar power, along with the project.
Adarsh Das, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, SunSource Energy said, “As an industry, we welcome the inclusion of ‘Climate action’ as one of the key pillars of the budget.
Several important announcements such as an additional allocation of Rs. 19,500 crore for the PLI scheme for module manufacturing, sovereign green bonds for funding solar projects, and a robust battery swapping policy will pave the way for reaching the target of 500 Gigawatts (GW) of non- fossil energy capacity by 2030 and achieving net-zero by 2070.”
The budget also said that sovereign green bonds will be granted in public sector projects to mobilise resources for green infrastructure which will reduce the carbon footprint.
The finance minister has also taken a big step towards announcing a battery swapping policy to allow setting up of charging stations at scale with private companies encouraged to model the swapping and land resources will be provided for the scheme.
