Govt approves 40 electronics manufacturing proposals

Under the subsidy scheme the total worth is Rs 9,565 cr

Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?

The number of proposals received and approved for manufacturing of electronics has seen a big jump over the past year.

According to data from the department of electronics and information technology, the January-March period has seen a 900 per cent jump over the same period last year in the value of investment approvals under the Modified Special Incentive Proposal Scheme (M-SIPS).

In January-March 2014, proposals worth Rs 289 crore were cleared. In the same period of 2015, these were worth Rs 3,059 crore.

Officials are attributing this to the ‘Make in India’ campaign, a flagships project of the Narendra Modi government, beside the outcome of past efforts to boost electronic manufacturing in the country.

“The Make in India campaign has certainly helped but with time, people have also become aware of what procedures to follow while sending the applications, which have increased the chances of those getting approved,” said a government official, who did not wish to be identified.

According to a separate set of statistics, the government has got a total of 63 proposals under the policy, worth Rs 20,825 crore. Of these, 40 worth Rs 9,565 crore have been approved and the rest are being considered. Of the 40 approved, eight worth a total of Rs 1,152 crore were cleared before May 2014. The present government took office in May last year.

While addressing a conference here on Tuesday, minister for communications and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said many foreign companies had come forward to invest in the country’s electronic manufacturing sector. Over the past year, he and officials from the department of electronics and IT have visited several countries to woo international companies into setting up a manufacturing base in India.

Under the M-SIPS policy, the government provides 20-25 per cent subsidy on capital expenditure for manufacturers of electronics, under 26 categories. Proposals by Korean white goods major Samsung India, Bosch Automotive Electronics, Tessolve Semiconductor Manufacturing Industries and Tejas Networks are among those approved.