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Mobile phone manufacturing in the country might reach 500 million units in two years, on the back of good base of talent and an incentive policy, a senior department of telecom (DoT) official said on Sunday.
This year, India produced 100 million phones, compared with 45 million last year.
Telecom Secretary J S Deepak was speaking on the second day of a seminar on Telecom and Broadcasting theme - ART (Adjudication, Regulation, Telecommunication) of Convergence, TDSAT.
Deepak said apart from phones, the differential tariff was helping domestic manufacturers get into other areas such as medical electronics, consumer electronics as well as broadband equipment, set-up boxes.
"Today with base of talent and incentive policy, India is becoming a global hub for manufacturing of phones and specially low-end phones," he added. The government is making efforts to reduce imports of electronic products and meet requirement of domestic market through indigenous production.
The government has received proposals worth Rs 1.13 lakh crore in the electronics manufacturing segment from major brands under the modified special incentive package scheme (M-SIPS).
M-SIPS has been extended till July 2020, which was earlier valid till July 2017. The scheme offers capital subsidies to large investments in electronics manufacturing and system design. The secretary also said making high-speed broadband available to individuals in rural areas was a priority of the government.
According to a survey, he said, while Internet users might have touched 400 million, broadband users are in the range of 40-50 million and growing very slowly in rural areas.
"Maybe seven per cent people in rural areas use Internet. More importantly, it's the issue of digital divide. We have only 14 per cent rural households which are digitally literate...this needs to change," he said.
