PLI scheme, basic customs duty: Only flickering benefits for solar power

A production-linked incentive scheme and possible basic customs duty will have a limited impact in encouraging domestic solar equipment manufacture

In 2015, the Prime Minister set an ambitious goal of generating 100Gw of power from solar by 2022. At that time, the country had less than 3Ge of solar power generation capacity. India had installed 36Gw of solar capacity until last year; as per Mercom Research data, it has only been able to add 3.2Gw in 2020.

One can blame the pandemic, for the halving of power generation, but capacity addition was dipping even before the pandemic hit the country. In 2019, India had added only 7.3Gw of solar power, as compared to 8.3Gw in 2018 and 9.8Gw in 2017.