Make in India: Mobile phones worth Rs 1 lakh crore to be produced in FY17
- Major phone companies have pledged to Make in India.
- These companies are assembling their phones in India.
FollowIn mere two years, India will be producing mobile phones worth five times compared to what it did back in 2014-15. IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told The Times of India that mobile phones worth Rs 97,000 crore will be produced this fiscal compared to Rs 18,900 crore in 2014-15.
Prasad said that 40 new factories have been setup in India during this period. As we know, almost all phone vendors from Indian to Chinese have pledged to Make in India. India is expected to produce about 200 million devices compared to 60 million that it did two years ago.
Make in India and Digital India are Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most ambitious projects that aim at easy governance, accelerated growth and creation of jobs that has taken a backseat. Xiaomi, Gionee and Motorola were among the first companies to announce their plans in line with PM Modi’s ambitious project. Several others have jumped onto the bandwagon.
However, let’s get this straight first – these companies will be assembling the devices in India, and not manufacturing. However, there have been efforts made to give a push to manufacturing here. For instance, Budget 2017 will introduce an additional tax on imported PCBs. Jaitley said that the move aims to focus on creating an ecosystem to make India a global hub for electronics manufacturing. The duty is believed to only further boost manufacturing parts here.
