Solar Industry eyes tax exemptions and financial aid from the coming Budget

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This budget is getting indispensible with government’s relief words for the manufacturers and associates. The dart of economic revival and business friendly country is on the suitcases of the coming budget.

The ambitious solar power industry has urged the government for tax incentives and financial aid to make 'solar' an attractive and viable option.

"The solar rooftop industry will certainly need better non-recourse financing options by increasing power sector exposure limits of domestic banks," one of the players in the solar industry said.

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Amplus Solar MD & CEO Sanjeev Aggarwal said extension of tax holidays, waiver of electricity duty and banking charge for solar rooftops, activating REC benefits for rooftop projects and captive projects will certainly motivate more rooftop installations to come up in cities and towns.

"The industry corridors are echoing with the chatter around various sops proposed by the government to improve the power situation in the country.” The need of the hour is to create an effective ecosystem to enhance solar power generation capacity across India. Enforcement of net metering guidelines across states and renewable purchase obligations, strengthening of grid infrastructure to accommodate intermittent solar power, and promoting storage solutions by way of incentives, subsidies etc. form the foremost asks of the solar power industry," he added.

While bankability of the discoms still remains a concern, going ahead it will be necessary for the state and centre to conduct targeted studies to assess strengthening of grid infrastructure to accommodate intermittent solar power and banking of power, Aggarwal added.

The solar rooftop industry will certainly need better non-recourse financing options by increasing power sector exposure limits of domestic banks, another player in the solar industry said. KPMG's Santosh Kamath said in the forthcoming budget there should be an outlay for incentivising storage technologies which would be useful for both solar as well as the Electric Vehicle industry.

The government has ambitious plans for deployment of 175 GW renewable power capacities by 2022, including 100 GW of solar.