Industry body Indian Cellular Association (ICA) National President Pankaj Mohindroo has been appointed as Chairman of the task force. Nokia SEZ President and Director - India Operations Josh Foulger has been made co-chairman along with Lava Co-Founder Hari Om Rai.
Samsung India Managing Director BD Park, Sony India Kenichiro Hibi, Microsoft Devices Director for Government relations Sandeep Bhargava, LG India MD Soon H Kwon, Micromax Informatics Co-founder Vikas Jain are also on board as members of the task force.
In an office memorandum, DEITY has announced setting up of a 'Fast Track task Force' to "re-establish and catalyse significant growth in mobile handset and component manufacturing eco-system in India."
As per the office memorandum, the terms of reference of the task force includes promotion of "large scale manufacturing/assembly activity to achieve production of 500 million units of mobile handsets by 2019 i.E. Annual manufacturing output of Rs 150,000 crore to 300,000 crore."
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It is estimated that this large scale production can create employment opportunity for 15 lakh people.
Mobile market in India is estimated to grown by 32 per cent or to USD 12 billion in 2014 but imports account for three-quarters of the market. Domestic production fell by 29 per cent in the year mainly due to suspension of production at Nokia plant.
Finland-based Nokia sold its worldwide handset business for USD 7.2 billion to Microsoft, but its Sriperumbudur plant was left out of the deal due to tax issues faced by Nokia India. The factory, considered to be among the largest for the company, stopped production from November.
Mobile exports crashed by 70 per cent from Rs 11,850 crore in 2013 to Rs 2,450 crore in 2014. They are estimated to be nil next year in absence of corrective measures, an ICA report has said.