About 37 telecom gear vendors and contract manufacturers, including Nokia, Cisco, Flex, Foxconn and Jabil, have applied under the Rs 12,195 crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom and networking equipment manufacturing. Local companies such as Tejas Networks, Coral Telecom, HFCL, VVDN and Dixon Technologies have also applied under the scheme.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will now select 20 companies from among these applicants based on competitive investment, which means companies committing higher investment will have better chances of getting selected. The scheme covers products such as 4G/5G next-generation radio access networks, IoT devices, customer premises equipment, routers and switches.
Samsung Electronics has decided not to apply for the scheme due to high investment needed at a time when the company has a free-trade agreement (FTA) route through which it continues to import equipment for its only customer, Reliance Jio Infocomm. Ericsson has applied under the scheme through its partner Jabil, which makes telecom gear for the company in Pune.
Ericsson India Head Nitin Bansal said the company confirms its participation in the PLI scheme for the telecom sector through partner Jabil.
“The additional investments made under the PLI scheme will help us scale up our Pune facilities where we are currently manufacturing 4G and 5G telecom equipment. The 5G radios produced at our Pune facility will help us meet the requirements of the domestic market when 5G is introduced in India,” said Nitin Bansal.
Dixon Technologies Executive Chairman Sunil Vachani commenteded are making Rs 200-250 crore investment and are looking to set up our unit in Punjab. We are partnering with Bharti for Customer premises equipment (CPE) devices and other telecom products in future. We are looking forward to an early announcement from the DoT.”
VVDN Technologies CEO Puneet Agarwal, Coral Telecom managing director Rajesh Tuli, HFCL Managing Director Mahendra Nahata and Tejas Networks CEO Sanjay Nayak also confirmed their participation.
