India’s Anti-dumping Duty on Solar Panels : Protectionism to Save Intermediaries or Recipe to Kill A Nascent, Sunrise Industry?

Abstract

Due to widespread discussion of global warming, fluctuation and volatility of oil price and compulsions of energy security almost every country is looking at green and clean technologies. Sustainable energy resources are gaining attention. Among other options, Solar has made remarkable progress technologically as well as commercially. The paper discusses the progress on the learning curve, and the plethora of issues that are being thrown up especially protection of home grown industry is one important debate. The sagacity of protecting some section of the industry or protecting the consumer and the global trade in a borderless world are issues to ponder over and an informed decision to be taken after consider all aspects holistically taking a long term perspective. The paper discusses the negative impacts of the immediate returns only perspective taken by imposing Anti Dumping Duty on Solar Panels and proposed a broad based long term collaborative perspective which would favour the end customer and the Indian solar panel industry per se.