Micromax keen to make mobile phones in Odisha

Co-founder Rajesh Aggarwal visits state to explore possibility of setting up a unit, but no imeediate plans on anvil

Home grown mobile handset manufacturer Micromax Informatics is in talks with the Odisha government for setting up a manufacturing unit in the state.

Rajesh Aggarwal, one of the co-founders of Micromax, on Wednesday visited the state to explore possibilities of setting up a unit here. The company officials visited Infocity and the upcoming electronic manufacturing cluster (EMC) coming up at the Infovalley in the city's periphery. While the initial plan is to make mobile handsets, Micromax may later diversify to its complete range of products like laptops, LED monitors and home appliances.



“Micromax had preliminary talks with us on their plans to set up a mobile handset manufacturing facility in the state. But the plans are not firmed up yet,” said the state’s information technology minister Pranab Prakash Das.

Micromax is the 10th largest mobile phone player in the world and currently the second largest smartphone company in India by volume after Samsung. In the April-June period of 2015, its share of total smartphone sales in the country moved up from 13 per cent to 17.9 per cent. Its share in the overall mobile phone sales also increased from 10 per cent to 12.6 per cent in the period.



Sources said, the smart phone vendor has submitted a wish list to the state government for putting up a unit. It has pegged the land requirement for the facility at 10 acres.

“The company has identified Bhubaneswar as a potential location. It will start manufacturing of mobile phones initially, after which they may diversify to laptops, home appliances and LED (light-emitting diode) monitors,” sources said.

Micromax inked another pact with the Andhra Pradesh government for manufacturing of mobile phones.

The Odisha government is banking on its upcoming EMC to pull investors in electronics space.

The department of electronics and information technology (DeitY), under the Union ministry of Communication and Information Technology, last year, had awarded in-principle approval for the EMC spreading over on 215 acres land at Infovalley. The final approval for the EMC is awaited.

To promote investments in the emerging ESDM (electronics system design and manufacturing) space, the state cabinet has recently approved a Special Package Incentive Scheme.

The new scheme offers capital investment subsidy, entry tax waiver, human capital investment subsidy, sales tax and VAT (value added) rebate, power incentives, interest subsidy over and above the sop promised in the state ICT Policy-2014. Investors intending to invest more than Rs 200 crore and offering employment to more than 500 persons at the time of commissioning and creating jobs for more than 2,000 persons in a span of five years would be entitled to 25 per cent investment subsidy on capital investment subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore.

Among other sops, the state government would offer an interest subvention of five per cent to the projects financed by public sector banks. The state government has also renamed IT department as the department of electronics and IT to diversify its areas of focus.