Will Approach PM for Import Duty on Power Equipment: Deshmukh.

New Delhi, (PTI) Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh today said he is still waiting for the Finance Ministry''s views on a proposal to impose duty on imported power equipment and plans to approach Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to press his case.

"We will go and meet the Prime Minister," Deshmukh said, adding that the unfair advantage enjoyed by foreign power equipment manufacturers as a result of the import duty exemption had an adverse impact on the development of domestic capacities.

Asked whether the Finance Ministry has rejected the proposal for levying a cumulative import duty of 19 per cent on power equipment, he said, "Nobody has communicated so far."

India plans to establish around 1 lakh megawatts of additional power generation capacity around the country by 2017, but supply bottlenecks due to capacity constraints faced by domestic manufacturers like BHEL and L&T remain an area of concern.

In this scenario, power firms have become increasingly reliant on overseas suppliers for their power equipment needs.

In particular, Chinese firms have been able to steal a march over their Indian counterparts, as the Communist government of the neighbouring country has facilitated the creation of massive manufacturing capacities, enabling them to offer power equipment at predatory prices.

Combined with the import duty waiver extended by the government to power equipment from overseas suppliers, domestic manufacturers are hard-pressed to remain competitive against their foreign peers. Most recently, Reliance Power, an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group firm, awarded a USD 10 billion contract for power equipment to Shanghai Electric Corporation.
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Source : news.in.msn.com