In what can be seen as a shot in the arm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad revealed that in the last one year, 11 crore mobile phones were manufactured in India. This is up from six crore in the year before.
Prasad also revealed that 37 mobile manufacturing companies were set up in the last one year, which have generated 40,000 new jobs and 1.25 lakh indirect employment. After inaugurating government-funded Electropreneur Park, Prasad notified that Indian government has decided to make India a big hub of electronics manufacturing.
Chinese companies like Gionee and Xiaomi are making their handsets at Foxconn plant in Andhra Pradesh. Domestic companies such as Karbonn, Lava, Micromax, iTel, and MTech too have set up their manufacturing plants in the country.
Chinese company LeEco will start mobile manufacturing unit on Tuesday. Prasad said that besides manufacturing electronics product in India, product designing is also important. He said that government has provided Rs 10,000 crore under Electronics Development Fund to support new entrepreneurs in the field of electronics.
The Electropreneur Park (EP), which was inaugurated at South Campus of Delhi University, is an incubation centre set up with government funds of around Rs 21 crore to support incubation of up to 50 companies.
Set up in collaboration with academia and industry represented by Indian Electronics and Semiconductor Association, the Park will focus on creation of intellectual property rights and product development to increase domestic manufacturing of electronics items.
Minister of State for IT and Law P P Choudhary asserted that India imports electronic goods of over Rs 3 lakh crore, which by 2020 government aims to bring down import to zero. The Electropreneur Park started today is a step in that direction. Ministry of Electronics and IT has selected six startup firms that will develop products at this incubation centre.
By EB Bureau
