New Delhi A top official said the Delhi government is in talks with top electronics companies, including Dixon Technologies and Lava, to build facilities in its proposed electronics city. The Delhi government has already identified 81 acres of land in North West Delhi’s Baprola for the ambitious project.
Jasmine Shah, vice chairperson of the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, a government think tank, said the Aam Aadmi Party-led government may also provide tax relief or capital subsidy to incentivize manufacturers. Apart from Dixon and Lava, the government is also in talks with Micromax and VVDN Technologies, Shah said in an interview.
“We are talking to everyone. We are talking to all the major national and international players who have plans to set up electronics facilities.”
Shah said talks with some global companies are at an early stage.
Queries sent to Lava, Dixon and Micromax remained unanswered till press time. A spokesperson for VVDN Technologies could not be immediately reached.
The electronics manufacturing hub plan is a key component of the Delhi government’s plan to create 20 lakh jobs in the next five years. The government expects that 80,000 employment opportunities will be created in Electronics City. The project aims to make the national capital a research and development (R&D) and manufacturing hub for electronics.
“The idea is to provide plug-and-play infrastructure facilities, but we will also combine it with additional incentives on tax or capital subsidy. We are working on that,” he said.
Delhi is also looking at ways to forge a tie-up between an electronic design organization and a local university to lead the next generation of electronics design talent. It has already tied up with the EPIC Foundation, a non-profit organization, to harness its expertise in electronics design.
The announcement about the electronic city was made this year Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia presented the state budget of 75,800 crores. The budget also envisages employment generation in sectors such as retail, food and beverage, logistics and supply chain, travel and tourism, entertainment, construction, real estate and green energy.
Shah said the government is planning to increase employment among women and electronics manufacturing presents a significant opportunity for them. “We have very skilled people in Delhi… Secondly, electronics manufacturing is a sector that is less polluting and employs a large number of women. ‘Employment’ One of our focus areas of the budget was that we Want to create more jobs and women should participate in our economy. It is our great belief that India’s per capita income will not increase if only 10% of your women are going to participate in the economy,” Shah said .
The plan to build an electronics manufacturing hub in the national capital is in line with the Centre’s thrust for domestic manufacturing to reduce import dependence. In the last two years, the central government has come up with several production-linked incentive schemes in several sectors including electronics, white goods and telecom equipment.
Noting that talks are currently underway on the planned hub, Shah said, “Maybe in the next two to three months, we will have a complete plan in terms of how we will realize the vision of developing this electronics city.” “
The National Policy on Electronics (NPE) 2019 also laid down the scheme for a revised Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) scheme. The revised EMC 2.0 scheme was notified in April 2020 to develop a robust electronics manufacturing ecosystem.
With the focus on domestic manufacturing by the Center and several state governments like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Koparthi (Andhra Pradesh), Chennai, Noida, Pune and Bengaluru have become electronic manufacturing clusters and hubs.