Monday, June 17, 2013: According to a news report, the telecom department has asked network vendors to convince their global component suppliers to set up manufacturing facilities in India. This move can help them comply with the norms on local value addition—as per new rules, network gear makers should meet 45 per cent and 65 per cent of their local value addition targets by 2017 and 2020, respectively.
There was near unanimity at a recent meeting of the Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Council, chaired by Department of Telecom (DoT) advisor RK Bhatnagar, that the government and the telecom industry needed to work together to maximise foreign direct investment ( FDI) in the telecom components space. However, the participants were of the opinion that overseas telecom companies are unlikely to do direct technology transfers or design actual telecom products in India. The telecom department plans to encourage network vendors to use locally manufactured components by offering an initial deployment incentive, equivalent to 30 per cent of the sale value, from the proposed Rs 100 billion Telecom Manufacturing Promotion Fund.
