A total of 36 companies, including India-based Akshata, Dixon Technologies, HFCL, Tejas, Tech Mahindra, and VVDN Technologies have shown interest
More than 35 firms have shown interest in investing approx Rs 4500 crore under the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom gear manufacturing. The government of India, under the scheme, had originally envisaged to attract investments of about Rs 3000 crore.
The Economic Times quoted a senior government official saying, “”With the current interest, we feel confident that India should be able to reach the estimated production figures and export figure of Rs 2 lakh crore in the next five years.”
A total of 36 companies, including India-based Akshata, Dixon Technologies, HFCL, Tejas, Tech Mahindra, and VVDN Technologies have shown interest. Jabil, Foxconn’s Rising Star, Sanmina, Sterlite Technologies, and Cisco are in the list of international applicants.
Despite the large investment amounts being promised by the applicants, the government may show a green flag to investments worth around Rs 3,800 crore. Companies that have included software under the scheme might not be given the go ahead.
Department of Telecom (DoT) had recently said that the PLI Scheme will be implemented within the overall financial limits of Rs 12,195 Crores for implementation of the scheme over a period of five years. For MSMEs, financial allocation will be Rs 1,000 crores.
The scheme stipulates a minimum investment threshold of Rs 10 Crores for MSME and Rs 100 Crores for non-MSME applicants. DoT added that it will grant approvals to 10 eligible applications each in MSME & non-MSME categories.
As per the guidelines, investments made by successful applicants in India from April 1, 2021, onwards and up to FY 2024-2025 shall be eligible for the scheme, subject to qualifying incremental annual thresholds. The support under the scheme shall be provided for a period of five years, i.e. from FY 2021-22 to FY 2025-26.
Samsung had earlier said that it was not participating in the scheme for telecom equipment manufacturing as it is not looking to commit new investments in a market where it has only one client, as per two top executives of the company.
