Long-term fiscal support : RE industry demands

The renewableenergy industry has a string of expectations from the government in this year’s Budget ranging from long-term financial support announcements to better clarity on tariff and non-tariff concessions.

According to industry executives, the government should also provide an increased allocation to the ministry of new and renewable energy for exploring areas such as offshore, hydrogen and storage.

“The government should offer clarity on the duty structure for solar manufacturing to kick-start the virtuous cycle of development, upstream and downstream… and also support storage as a short-term measure through concessional duty structure till local manufacturing gathers pace,” Sumant Sinha, chairman and managing director.In order to make it a robust sector, the government had recently introduced the production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme along with the  ₹90,000-crore liquidity infusion scheme for stressed discoms and notifying power as a service.

There is also a policy thrust under Atmanirbhar Bharat to encourage domestic manufacturing of solar cells and modules. However, clarity with respect to tariff measures such as basic customs duty and non-tariff concessions such as the PLI scheme are still awaited.

According to Girishkumar Kadam, vice-president, sector head – corporate ratings, ICRA, the coming Budget is expected to focus on measures for renewables, strengthening of transmission and distribution (T&D) network, and on improving the viability of the distribution segment.