NEW DELHI: Laptop makers will need to provide routine updates on their India manufacturing plans to the government or face the risk of cuts in import quotas, sources have told TOI. The move comes as government on Thursday rolled out an ‘import management system’ for companies shipping devices into India, with a focus on localisation or sourcing from trusted locations.
“It has been made clear to the companies that they will need to walk the talk on their India manufacturing plans spelt out under the revised production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. If they delay their investments or continue to rely just on imports, restrictions are likely to be placed on their shipments, while their quotas run the risk of being curtailed,” a source said. “There will be routine reviews, where the government will assess the compliance on this front.”
Electronics and IT secretary S Krishnan told reporters that several applications have come under PLI and are under appraisal and within one-two months, the process will be completed
The reason for the government’s insistence on kick-starting domestic production of laptops is heavy reliance of companies on China for both fully-built units or components. “The government is categorical in its insistence that companies either start manufacturing here, or else start respecting the ‘trusted source’ norm, which means procuring from regions beyond China.”
Currently, more than 80% of laptops are sourced from China, with only some supplies coming from countries like Vietnam. On components front, a large part of procurement again happens from China, and this causes a lot of unease within the government, which has been aggressively pushing Make in India and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat‘ (self-reliant India) slogan across the world. Such has been the eagerness on this front that the government massively revised incentives under the IT hardware PLI scheme, raising it from previously-allocated Rs 7,300 crore to Rs 17,000 crore.
Companies such as HP, Dell, Asus and Acer have shown interest to participate in India’s local manufacturing plans, lining up investments as well as manufacturing partners towards this effort. For example, HP is investing with US contract manufacturer Flex (at the latter’s Chennai facility) not only for its own needs, but also to manufacture Chromebooks along with fellow American giant Google.
Taiwanese major Asus has similar plans. The $15 billion electronics maker, which earlier manufactured some of its products at a factory in Noida, has now started aggressive expansion plans for production in India as part of which it has started to migrate its suppliers from China. It has also partnered Flex for this expansion.
“It has been made clear to the companies that they will need to walk the talk on their India manufacturing plans spelt out under the revised production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. If they delay their investments or continue to rely just on imports, restrictions are likely to be placed on their shipments, while their quotas run the risk of being curtailed,” a source said. “There will be routine reviews, where the government will assess the compliance on this front.”
Electronics and IT secretary S Krishnan told reporters that several applications have come under PLI and are under appraisal and within one-two months, the process will be completed
The reason for the government’s insistence on kick-starting domestic production of laptops is heavy reliance of companies on China for both fully-built units or components. “The government is categorical in its insistence that companies either start manufacturing here, or else start respecting the ‘trusted source’ norm, which means procuring from regions beyond China.”
Currently, more than 80% of laptops are sourced from China, with only some supplies coming from countries like Vietnam. On components front, a large part of procurement again happens from China, and this causes a lot of unease within the government, which has been aggressively pushing Make in India and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat‘ (self-reliant India) slogan across the world. Such has been the eagerness on this front that the government massively revised incentives under the IT hardware PLI scheme, raising it from previously-allocated Rs 7,300 crore to Rs 17,000 crore.
Companies such as HP, Dell, Asus and Acer have shown interest to participate in India’s local manufacturing plans, lining up investments as well as manufacturing partners towards this effort. For example, HP is investing with US contract manufacturer Flex (at the latter’s Chennai facility) not only for its own needs, but also to manufacture Chromebooks along with fellow American giant Google.
Taiwanese major Asus has similar plans. The $15 billion electronics maker, which earlier manufactured some of its products at a factory in Noida, has now started aggressive expansion plans for production in India as part of which it has started to migrate its suppliers from China. It has also partnered Flex for this expansion.