Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Nov 17: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Monday approved 17 new projects under the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS), offering incentive payouts linked to company turnover. The latest approvals carry a cumulative proposed investment of Rs 7,172 crore, forming the second tranche after seven projects were cleared earlier this month.

Highlighting the broader aim of the scheme, IT Secretary S Krishnan said ECMS seeks to strengthen India’s electronics value chain. “The objective is to deepen the value chain so that even as part of a global system, we have strong enough roots. Tomorrow, even if labour costs rise, the industry will not move out,” he said, adding that the focus was on building “innate and inbuilt competitiveness”.

The Union Cabinet had earlier approved Rs 22,919 crore for promoting electronics component manufacturing across the country.

Major components to be manufactured under the newly approved projects include:

• Nine units for multi-layered PCBs
• Three for camera modules
• Two for optical transceivers used in data centres and telecom networks
• One each for connectors, oscillators, and enclosures

Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the success of India’s electronics sector had “proven naysayers wrong”, stressing that earlier mistakes in implementation would not be repeated. “This scheme can’t be a spotter’s paradise,” Krishnan said, referring to companies that sat on past approvals without delivering. With 249 applicants and a Rs 22,000 crore incentive pool, funds will go to firms that execute swiftly, he emphasised.

The newly cleared projects span Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh. MeitY estimates that these investments will together generate Rs 1,09,517 crore in production value and create 11,808 direct jobs across the country.