Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: Telecom and allied industries are among the top employment generators in the country today, especially mobile phones, where from just two factories in 2014, India has become the second largest producer in the world.
The target now is to increase electronics manufacturing capacity to over Rs. 24 lakh crore by 2025- 26, which will also help create over 10 lakh jobs.
In the mobile phone sector, India was a major manufacturing and export hub till 2011. The pace of exports slacked after the shutdown of Nokia’s manufacturing facility in 2014. Domestic manufacturing also suffered, and imports increased.
From PMP to PLI
The Government, in consultation with the industry, then resorted to Phased Manufacturing Policy (PMP) in 2017 to boost electronics manufacturing, particularly of mobile phones. This was aimed at a duty-based import substitution effort that would largely depend upon imposing duties in a phased manner.
It was an attempt to start generating domestic manufacturing primarily for internal use.
In 2022, the approach and the entire strategy underwent a change.
From PMP, it was now Production Linked incentive (PLI). This was aimed at transforming India into a global hub for mobile and electronics manufacturing. This had competitiveness, scale, and exports in focus.
With the introduction of the scheme in the Union Budget 2021- 22, PLI for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing attracted investment of more than Rs. 4,700 crore. Over 200 manufacturing units have been set up in India since then.
Samsung came with the world’s largest phone manufacturing unit, Apple too set up major bases in the country, and Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Lava soon followed suit.
