Safeguarding solar power

Steep duties on China-made cells may be unwise

The proposal by the Directorate General of Safeguards to impose a 70 per cent safeguard duty on solar cells and panels from China, Taiwan and Malaysia partly exemplifies the limitations of the “Make in India” policy in fulfilling challenging targets. The directorate’s suggestion, which excludes manufacturers in the US and the European Union (EU), was made on the basis of a complaint by the Indian Solar Manufacturers’ Association that cheap Chinese solar panels were causing them “serious injury”. There has been, according to the directorate, an over six-fold growth (643 per cent) in Chinese imports since 2014-15, at a time