India's wind energy sector faces a paradox of rising installed capacity but import dependence in critical components. Analyse the causes and suggest policy measures.

India's installed wind capacity touched 56.09 GW by March 2026, the world's fourth-largest [1]. Yet large tower flanges, main bearings and heavy forgings remain largely imported — deployment has outpaced deepening of the domestic value chain.

Causes of the paradox

• Deployment-biased policy: incentives such as tariff-based competitive bidding and the ₹7,453 crore VGF scheme for offshore wind reward megawatts installed, not manufacturing depth [4].
• Manufacturing PLI confined to solar: the ₹24,000 crore National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules has no wind-component counterpart [3].
• Heavy-engineering capability gap: 5 MW+ turbine platforms need high-precision large forgings and bearings that domestic forging facilities cannot yet supply at scale [5].
• Cost non-competitiveness against China's mature, subsidised turbine ecosystem [5].
• Import-facilitating fiscal tools: concessional customs duty exemptions on wind generator components eased sourcing abroad rather than building supply at home [2].
• Shallow localisation: assembly is largely Indian, but high-value subsystems — converters, generators, specialty castings — are not [5].

Policy measures

• A wind-component PLI modelled on the solar PV programme [3], targeted at forgings, flanges and large bearings.
• An export-linked incentive (₹/MW or turnover-linked, over 5–7 years) as sought by IWTMA from MNRE, with export finance and domestic buyer credit [5].
• Negotiate reciprocal market access for wind equipment in the ongoing India–EU FTA [5].
• A phased local-content roadmap under MNRE's ALMM-type framework, with customs duty tapering calibrated to domestic capacity [2].
• Use the 30 GW offshore wind pipeline and port upgradation under VGF as anchor demand for indigenous forging [4].
• Fund R&D and skilling in forging metallurgy and large-bearing technology.

Capacity leadership without component sovereignty leaves clean energy security hostage to external supply chains. Aligning manufacturing incentives with the 500 GW non-fossil target pledged at COP26 [1] would convert India from a wind-power installer into a global wind-equipment exporter — advancing both Atmanirbhar Bharat and SDG-7.