Govt weighing new smartphone incentives in 2026, says top official
The government is discussing an extension or a completely new production-linked incentives plan for assembling mobile phones in India as the existing ₹40,995 crore scheme is set to expire in March, according to a top government official.A final call on the exact contours of the new or an extended mobile phone PLI scheme has not been taken, and the quantum of incentives has not been decided, S Krishnan, secretary at the ministry of electronics and IT (Meity), said in an interview.“There’s an analysis which shows that some degree of disability continues in the mobile phone electronics industry. While the situation has improved significantly, there still are areas that require improvement and support.
The electronics component manufacturing scheme (ECMS), too, will take at least two years or so to really provide support in terms of cost reduction,” Krishnan said.“This means that the support that will come in terms of cheaper imports and so on through ECMS, which will reduce disabilities, will still take some more time to kick in,” he said. “To this extent, it’s important that we see what can be done.
The other reason here is that mobile manufacturing is one PLI that has been very successful, so ending it too early may jeopardize the gains that India has made.”The current mobile phone PLI scheme, launched on 1 April 2020, offered manufacturers cash incentives of 4-6% of the turnover from locally made devices. With an outlay of ₹40,995 crore over six years, the mobile phone PLI accounted for 20% of ₹1.97 trillion in incentives offered by the Centre across 14 such schemes.The government has disclosed the amount of investment the PLI scheme attracted and the total production it has led to.
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