Cisco sets up manufacturing hub in Pune

Company has said that it will manufacture a diverse product portfolio in India to support the government's Make in India initiative.

Cisco on Wednesday announced it has started manufacturing operations in the country. The networking device manufacturer has partnered with the government of Maharashtra to launch it's manufacturing facility in Pune.

Cisco said it will manufacture a diverse product portfolio in India to support the government’s Make in India initiative. "Cisco will use its India manufacturing operations to produce and ship orders for customers here, as well as for testing, development, logistics, and in-house repair capabilities, " the company said.

"We started our journey in India in 1995. Ten years back, we made India our second headquarters. About 15 months ago, we committed our priorities around Digital India," said Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco. "Today’s (Wednesday’s) announcement reaffirms Cisco’s long-term commitment to India..."

Cisco and the Maharashtra   government also announced new local strategic initiatives to help the digital transformation of the state, which includes the citywide deployment of a Smart City framework to roll out Smart City solutions in Nagpur, digital learning for students and skills development for local entrepreneurs in Dharavi, Mumbai, to create an e-commerce hub, expansion of the Cisco Networking Academy programme, and digital education and health care initiatives in Fetri village.

Cisco  will be rolling out Smart City solutions in Nagpur to enable city-wide network connectivity along with smart and  secure Wi-Fi hotspots and  smart safety and surveillance solutions. Cisco’s city digital platform will also integrate the various citizen services enabled by smart cities architecture including smart transport, solid waste management, smart lighting, environmental sensors, and smart parking.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said Cisco will play an instrumental role in helping the state's vision of being digitally connected.

With Cisco as a partner, the chief minister said,  Maharashtra will become the first digitally connected state by 2018.

"As a part of Digital India's Bharat Net initiative,  Maharashtra has MahaNet under which the state will be connecting 29,000 Gram Panchayat by 2018," Fadnavis said.

The company also announced its plans to scale up the Cisco Networking Academy program,  one of its largest programs in India, which runs  across 186 academies and has trained  122,000 students so far.

The company said it will set up to 25 Cisco Networking Academies to train approximately 10,000 students in Maharashtra by 2020.

Another initiative that Cisco has rolled out is to turn Dharavi into an e-commerce hub. Under the initiative, local entrepreneurs and start-ups will be able to use the school with virtual classrooms as a platform for local innovation.

The company currently has 11,000 employees in the country. One in 4 engineers, that is 25 per cent of its engineers are based out of India