The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for IT Hardware with the aim to attract investments and promote the capacity and capability of Indian companies.
The budgetary outlay of the PLI scheme is Rs 17,000 crores for a period of six years. “Under the focused leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, electronic manufacturing, which was only 20-29 billion dollars, has crossed 100 billion dollars in nine years. Now, to keep the momentum, Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) for IT hardware has been approved by Cabinet today for the new types of computing devices,” Union Minister for Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said told the media after a meeting of union cabinet.
“It covers laptops, PCs, all-in-one computers, servers and ultra-small form factor devices. There was an earlier version of the scheme too, and now after taking feedback and revisions, a modified version has been passed by the cabinet today,” he added.
The Union Minister said that the investments attracted by India in the telecom sector were more than the target.
“Improvement has also been witnessed in telecom manufacturing. Rs 1600 crore of investment took place in the field when the target was only Rs 900 crores. Out of the Indian companies, two have become very important exporters of complex radio equipment. In this respect, we have to look at the IT hardware,” Vaishnaw said.
Elaborating on the PLI scheme, the Union Minister said that the expected direct employment is 75,000.
“A comprehensive plan has been approved today. The IT hardware has a very complex atmosphere…So to bring IT firms to India, localise and incentivise them, work for the growth of the Indian companies to increase their capacities and capabilities so that in future Indian brands can be developed by a combination of design and manufacturing,” he said.
“The budgetary outlay of the IT PLI is Rs 17000 crore. The period is six years. Expected incremental production is Rs 3.35 lakh crore, expected incremental investment is Rs 2,430 crores and expected direct employment is 75,000. But as we saw, the investment in telecom was more than what we were expecting. So, the way things are moving, tn this also, the investment will be more than our target.”
