As industry players look for alternatives to China and Vietnam, India aims to grab the chance to become a smartphone manufacturing hub
In a recent update from the policy corner, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has formed a nine-member task force to enhance product development and manufacturing in the country. As per reports, the task group to make India a ‘product developer and manufacturing nation’ will be chaired by MeitY’s additional secretary, Bhuvnesh Kumar. Further, Amitesh Kumar Sinha, joint secretary (electronics) is set to serve as the member convenor of the group. As per the industry players, domestic value addition in electronics manufacturing will be the main focus of the task force. It is learnt from the circular that the recommendations from the task force will be presented in two months.
Other eminent personalities including Ajai Chowdhry, founder of HCL, Sunil Vachani, chairman of Dixon Technologies, Hari Om Rai, chairman of Lava International, Vivek Bansal, President of Engineering, VVDN, Aman Gupta, co-founder of Boat Lifestyle, Sanjay Nayak, managing director of Tejas Networks, and Vivek Tyagi, Chairperson of IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Association) are also part of this task force.
One anonymous officer told the media, “From what I understand, the goal will be to increase electronics manufacturing with higher value addition. While the PLI scheme boosted mobile phone assembly in India, value addition is low. Assembly line workers have also dominated job growth.” The executive believes that indigenous equipment design should be promoted, followed by the procurement of components, and then complete manufacturing in India.
It is noteworthy that the government launched a Rs 36,000-crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme in 2020, with the aim to propel smartphone manufacturing in India. Under the plan, global giants like Apple contract manufacturer Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron, Samsung, and Indian firms like Dixon Technologies, Lava International, and others undertook various domestic manufacturing initiatives. The Centre is also expected to come up with a ₹10K crore PLI scheme for IT hardware by April 2024.
