The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has announced the formation of a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cell to process the FDI proposals.

According to the FDI policy, a non-resident entity can invest in India, subject to the FDI policy except in those sectors or activities which are prohibited like defense, space, atomic energy.

The revised policy now says that any investment by an entity of a country that shares a land border with India or where the beneficial owner of investment is a citizen of any of those countries will need government approval. Earlier, only Bangladesh and Pakistan were under this category, which has now been expanded to all neighboring countries sharing the border with India. India shares land borders with seven neighboring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. Now, the FDI proposals involving investments from these countries will be processed by the concerned administrative ministry or department.

The cell formed under the MNRE would consist of Amitesh Kumar Sinha, joint secretary (solar), and Ruchin Gupta, MNRE’s Director.

Recently, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in April 2020, revised its FDI policy to curb “opportunistic takeovers or acquisitions” of Indian companies amid the ongoing pandemic caused by the coronavirus.

In India, the majority of renewable expansion has been made possible with the help of FDI.

Earlier, Mercom reported that the foreign direct investments in India’s renewable sector stood at $1.27 billion (~₹96.96 billion) for the first nine months of the financial year (FY) 2019-20. The sector received $1.45 billion (~₹110.53 billion) in the entire FY 2018-19. If we look at the past few years, the sector has been witnessing a steady increase in the inflow of FDI. For instance, it increased from $783.57 million (~₹59.89 billion)in 2016-17 to $1.2 billion (~₹92.06 billion) in 2017-18 and then to $1.44 billion (~₹110.53 billion) in 2018-19.