Dixon to invest Rs 200 cr under PLI; plans to acquire Bharti's plant

Electronics manufacturing services firm Dixon Technologies plans to acquire a Ludhiana-based manufacturing unit of Bharti Group to start making telecom gears under the production-linked incentive scheme announced for the sector, a top company official has said.

The company plans to invest Rs 200 crore under the PLI scheme for the sector, and this investment includes acquisition cost of Bharti Group manufacturing unit.

"Dixon has got a PLI licence for the telecom sector. We are proposing to do a joint venture with the Bharti Group. The first manufacturing plant that we will be acquiring will be Bharti's plant in Ludhiana which used to manufacture telephones," Dixon Technologies executive chairman Sunil Vachani said.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has shortlisted 31 companies including Dixon Technologies under the production-linked incentive scheme, entailing investment of Rs 3,345 crore over a period of 4 years.

Nokia India, HFCL, Tejas Networks, Flextronics, Foxconn, Coral Telecom, VVDN Technologies, Frog Cellsat, Syrma, Resolute, GX India, etc are among those who have been selected for the PLI scheme.

The DoT notified the PLI scheme for telecom and networking products on February 24, 2021, with a financial outlay of Rs 12,195 crore, over five years.

The scheme for telecom gear manufacturing in India, which is expected to encourage production of equipment worth Rs 2.44 lakh crore and create direct and indirect employment for about 42,000 people.

The investor can earn incentive for incremental sales up to 20 times the committed investment, enabling them to reach global scales and utilise their unused capacity and ramp up production.