MeitY approves greenfield Electronics Manufacturing cluster for Rs 492.85 crore in Pune

In yet another step towards making India into an electronics heavyweight and achieving $300 billion of electronics manufacturing in the country, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeiTY)  has approved the greenfield Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) with a project cost of Rs 492.85 crore to be set up in Ranjangaon Phase III, near Pune in Maharashtra. According to the ministry, the EMC at Ranjangaon, Pune, will soon catalyse investments to the tune of over Rs 2000 crore and generate employment for over 5,000 people. The approval for the EMC was given to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and the state government’s State Industrial Agency. 
 

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, said, “We already have EMCs in Noida, Tirupati, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu - wherein both multi-national companies and Indian startups have set up their units. The Government of India is the enabling partner in these EMCs, and it is working in tandem with the state governments to make these EMCs a catalyst for the electronics manufacturing in the state.” 

In addition, the ministry also plans to give a boost to Rs 1000 crore Semicon India Future Design programme to support Semiconductor Design start-ups in the state. It plans to visit Maharashtra for a roadshow. And C-DAC, Pune, shall be the nodal office for this purpose. 

India as electronics manufacturing hub

Heavily dependent on imports, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has been looking for an alternate supply chain to China. This is an opportunity the Indian government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been working towards. For this, the government introduced various schemes and incentives that have attracted investments from global names such as iPhone manufacturer Foxconn and Samsung, to name a few. 

“While 92 per cent of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were imported in 2014, now 97 per cent of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were domestically manufactured. We had zero exports in electronics manufacturing space in 2014; at present, we export equipment worth Rs 70,000 crore,” added Minister Chandrasekhar. 

While electronics manufacturing has seen an exponential rise, which increased to Rs 6 lakh crore from Rs 1 lakh crore in 2014, India is still not self-reliant. 

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