Prasad assures incentives for electronics producers

The Centre on Monday assured to provide fresh incentives and sops to galvanise electronics as well as phone industry in the country in coming two-three months.

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who held a brainstorming meeting with top CEOs of the electronics and mobile phone manufacturing companies, said that in the next two to three months, the government will roll out a complete roadmap, including incentives and sops, that will act as a catalyst for companies to deepen their manufacturing and export commitments.

The Niti Aayog will bring out a plan soon in this regard in consultation with the IT ministry, he added.

The plan to incentivise manufacturing will entail various aspects including sops by states as well as favourable policies related to land and energy.

Prasad also instructed the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology to set up an institutionalised mechanism in the form of a task force that would regularly interact with the industry, take their suggestions and address concerns.

The minister also asked Apple and Samsung to make India as their export hub by expanding their manufacturing facilities.

Apple, which works with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron in India, currently makes iPhone 6S and 7 here. Sources said Apple is looking at assembling more models in the country, although there has been no official word from the company on the same.

The minister's day-long meeting with CEOs comes at a time when India is trying to pitch itself as an international hub for electronics and grab opportunities that have cropped up in the backdrop of rising trade tensions between the US and China, a global manufacturing destination.

Prasad also asserted that India must become a hub for 5G, and that such an ecosystem needs to be backed by Intellectual property (IP), patents and Research and Development. India is also open to companies that want to leverage it purely for exports, he said.

India has set its sight on creating a $ 400 billion (around Rs 28.43 lakh crore) electronic manufacturing ecosystem by 2025 and notified a new policy to boost manufacturing activities.