Vaishnaw, who is also the minister for railways and information & broadcasting, said more than 99% of all mobile phones used in the country are being made in India.
“This year, Apple will be manufacturing its latest model in India,” Vaishnaw said at The Economic Times World Leaders Forum. “The value of electronics manufacturing in India had increased to $105 billion as of 2022-23, up from $29 billion in 2013-14. We are preparing a programme where the component ecosystem can expand in India in the same way as electronics and mobile manufacturing has expanded.”
The government is likely to allocate up to Rs 40,000 crore to an electronics component manufacturing scheme, which is expected to be launched later this year. It expects successful applicants under the scheme to invest around Rs 82,000 crore, while the total value of components produced by these firms could be between Rs 1.95 lakh crore and Rs 2 lakh crore during the course of the scheme.
The focus on the electronics component ecosystem will be akin to production-linked incentive schemes for mobiles and semiconductors, Vaishnaw said. The minister said that the production value of mobile phones manufactured in India had increased from Rs 18,900 crore in 2014 to Rs 4.1 lakh crore in 2024.
In the semiconductor chips manufacturing and packaging ecosystem, the government is on track to complete the construction of all four approved semiconductor projects on time, he said. “We are looking at a complete ecosystem and not just the fab. We are looking at design, fab, ATMP (assembly, testing, marking and packaging), creating the talent pool and making sure the entire supply ecosystem comes to India,” Vaishnaw said. He said the government’s focus on infrastructure spans three areas — development of physical infrastructure, progress of digital infrastructure and improvement of social infrastructure. Speaking on the progress of physical infrastructure, Vaishnaw said the government has approved rail, road, airport and port projects worth Rs 2 lakh crore since coming to power for a third term.In railways, he said the government has laid down more than 31,000 km of tracks in the last 10 years, with an average of 14.5 km per day in 2023-24. On India’s first high-speed bullet train project, Vaishnaw said 327 km of via duct has been constructed in the last three years, besides 21 km of undersea tunnel, which would be 25 to 65 metres below the surface of the sea. He said the government had in the last decade built 370 km of railway tunnels, which is more than twice of those constructed before 2014.The government will also start the trials of Vande Bharat sleeper trains within the next seven days, he said, adding that the idea behind Vande Bharat was to develop good products engineered in India. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated three new Vande Bharat trains connecting Chennai with Nagercoil, Madurai with Bengaluru and Meerut with Lucknow. At WLF, Vaishnaw said the government intends to democratise technology by making sure that big tech does not have a monopoly over it.
“We must make sure that every person with a good idea must get the opportunity to test that idea and build something upon it. That is the idea behind India Stack,” he said.
