Solar row: Farooq says local manufacturing essential

Three days after US dragged India to WTO over solar power projects that allow only local equipment, Union Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah today called for increased local manufacturing and said there is no need to worry about the row with America.
"There is no need to worry about it (US taking us to the WTO over solar power subsidy). We are handling the issue. We will have to concentrate on manufacturing locally instead of depending on foreign countries," the Minister said when sought his response to the issue.
Addressing a function of the solar industry, he said though the country needs to cooperate with other nations for technologies, it is high time that we started manufacturing equipment as we cannot depend on others forever.

"How long are we going to depend on others for equipment? Though we cannot achieve our target alone and we will have to coordinate with other nations, we need to manufacture them locally as we cannot depend on them for equipment and modules forever".
On Monday, the US had challenged the domestic content requirement in the mission at the WTO, alleging it was discriminatory and against international norms, including WTO laws, and badly affects American domestic solar panel manufacturing industry.
The US also sought WTO dispute consultations with India concerning domestic content requirements in Phase II of the country solar mission, to protect 10,000 jobs which may get affected due to New Delhi's insistence on using only locally manufactured solar cells and modules in phase II of the project.

Commerce Minister Anand Sharma had defended the country's solar mission having a focus on domestic content requirement and said the country will deal appropriately with the US contention of it being protectionist at the WTO.
"We will respond in the WTO adequately. We will give a response at the WTO," Sharma had said.