Mumbai: Concerned over the future of the sunrise industry threatened by the proposed imposition of a 70 per cent safeguard duty on the import of solar power equipment, sector experts are expecting some breather from the budget. Experts believe the duty will not only increase the tariff by almost Re 1 but it will also put the projects under execution in deep trouble, making them unviable. "The sudden imposition of the duty will put a number of projects that are currently under various stages of development at risk in the near term. More than 10,000MW of capacity is imported annually and this duty will adversely impact the projects' viability," CleanMax Solar managing director Kuldeep Jain said. According to Crisil, the projects auctioned in 2017 were bid for at low tariffs, so any rise in equipment cost after the safeguard duty would crimp the cushion that developers have to service debt.

Source: The Telegraph January 28, 2018 20:03 UTC