Looking at inverted duty structure issues: Piyush Goyal

Power Minister Piyush Goyal Thursday said the government has been looking to resolve the inverted duty structure that hampers manufacturers in the solar energy sector.

"The finance minister is concerned about our 'Make in India' programme and we are sorting out certain inverted duty issues bothering the (solar) manufacturers," Goyal said at the India Economic Summit here.

Indian manufacturers have asked for scrapping the inverted duty structure, whereby the finished goods are taxed at rates lower than for importing raw materials.

The power minister also announced that the industry has withdrawn its earlier demand for an anti-dumping duty on solar panels from countries like the US and China after intensive dialogue on the issue.

Demonstrating their commitment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' campaign, "solar manufacturers, suo moto, withdrew their anti-dumping duty request that would have killed the domestic industry, which would have been implemented in August", Goyal said.

"I am happy to inform that solar manufacturers have measured up to our expectations. This will strengthen domestic manufacturing, but will also allow international competition to keep costs low," he added.

Domestic power firms have been lobbying against the imposition of the duty as it would have led to rise in equipment costs.

In September, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said the ministry's proposal to impose anti-dumping duty on solar cells has been allowed to lapse.

In May, the UPA government had recommended to impose a restrictive duty in the range of $0.11-0.81 per watt on solar cells imported from the US, China, Malaysia and Chinese Taipei.

Goyal earlier said domestic solar equipment manufacturing capacity of 700-800 MW is not sufficient to meet the government's ambitious plans of adding more power generation capacity through renewable energy sources.

The country's current installed solar generation capacity is over 2,600 MW.