Government nod for Rs.1,000-crore electronics product manufacturing

In a bid to expand the electronics manufacturing base and be self-reliant in the sector, the government Friday approved project proposals worth nearly Rs.1,000 crore from three electronics manufacturing companies (EMC) across various parts of the country.

Kapil Sibal, union minister for communications & information technology later told media persons here that already the IT department has received Rs.4,600 crore worth of "firm applications" and "this is just the first tranche".

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (Deity) secretary J. Satyanarayana said: "By March 2014, we expect to receive around Rs.25,000 crore worth of investment proposals."

Among the companies who got the green signal from the ministry are Bosch Automotive Electronics India. It will be investing Rs.544 crore to manufacture automotive electronics in Bangalore.

The companies, which will carry out these projects in special economic zones (SEZs), will get a subsidy from the government of 20 percent on the capital expenditure and those in non-SEZ areas will get 25 percent subsidy.

Samsung India got approval for its Rs.406 crore project on handheld phones to be manufactured in its Noida campus and it will fetch the company 25 percent subsidy from the government.

A small and medium enterprise (SME), Sahasra Electronics, also got the go-ahead and will invest Rs.11 crore to manufacture LED lights. Since its campus is located in a SEZ area, it will get 20 percent subsidy from the government.

These applications fall under the Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (MSIPS) of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (Deity).

Sibal said that in order to boost the confidence of the future investors, the latest IT Policy will remain firm for the next 10 years and there is no need to panic that it will get changed soon.

The minister also unveiled the Urdu language fonts and keyboard manager.