'42 mobile companies set up plants in India'

A total of 42 mobile manufacturing companies have set up their plants in India in the past two years, and now a total 13 crore mobiles have been made in a year, compared with six crore earlier.

Since the NDA government came to power at the Centre in 2014, a total one lakh direct jobs and three lakh indirect jobs were created in mobile manufacturing, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Chinese companies like Gionee and Xiaomi are making their handsets at the Foxconn plant in Andhra Pradesh.

Domestic companies such as Karbonn, Lava, Micromax, Intex, Jivi, iTel, and MTech too have set up their manufacturing plants in the country. Chinese company LeEco has also started its mobile manufacturing unit, while Holitech and Wind Communications expressed interest in expanding their business in India.

Emerging as a hub

Around 25 handset-making companies have set up their plant in Noida and Greater Noida alone, and Western Uttar Pradesh is emerging as a hub for electronics manufacturing, said an official in the IT Ministry. 

Around 7,000 acres of land is available across 18 states for companies to set up their factories in India. The country imports electronic goods of over Rs 3 lakh crore. By 2020, the government aims to bring down import to zero.

Globally, the electronics industry is looking for new destinations following the high cost of manufacturing in China. India is trying to attract more companies, said the official.

The government has provided Rs 10,000 crore under the Electronics Development Fund to support new entrepreneurs in the field of electronics.

The Electropreneur Park (EP), which was started in the 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, said the official.