- Niti Aayog will seek proposals from states to identify locations for plants and on providing duty waivers and exemptions to the battery manufacturers
- The states will be asked to reduce state GST, facilitate land acquisition, provide concessional electricity, single-window clearance and environmental clearance
- Once the best proposals are identified, Niti Aayog will invite bids from companies to set up the plants at identified locations
The government is likely to soon issue tenders inviting companies to set up 50-GW battery manufacturing base in India at $50-billion investment with attractive financial incentives as the Cabinet is expected to consider the proposal in a week.
The battery manufacturing programme has been scaled up to 50 GW in a proposal sent to Cabinet from 40 GW that was planned earlier. The government is likely to offer subsidies and duty cuts. This could include reducing the minimum alternate tax to half and import and export duty waivers or cuts for eight years for successful bidders, a senior government official said to Economic Times.
Plan of action
According to the final plan, Niti Aayog will seek proposals from states to identify locations for plants and on providing duty waivers and exemptions to the battery manufacturers. The states will be asked to reduce state GST, facilitate land acquisition, provide concessional electricity, single-window clearance and environmental clearance.
Once the best proposals are identified, Niti Aayog will invite bids from companies to set up the plants at identified locations. This is probably the first time Niti Aayog is executing a tendering process of this magnitude as it has always been involved in the planning stage.
He further stated that as per the proposal, the companies will have to set up the manufacturing facilities by 2022, after which they will get the incentives for eight years till 2030.
