‘Make in India’ initiative has steadily contributed to the growth of the electronics sector, fostering increased domestic production, improving technological capabilities, and supporting the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. On the 10th anniversary of the Make-in-India (MII) campaign, S. Krishnan, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), highlighted the tremendous impact of initiative on India's Electronics sector. He emphasized that electronics has emerged as one of the most impactful sectors.

Electronics manufacturing driving MII

Sh. Krishnan mentioned that the overall production of electronics in India at the beginning of this period, in 2014 -15, was 1.9 lakh crore and today it has reached 9.52 lakh crore with an annual compounded growth rate of 17.4%, significantly faster than the rest of the sectors of economy. Exports from India in the electronics manufacturing sector have also risen substantially from about ₹38,263 crore, that is USD 5.7 billion in 2014-15 to ₹2.41 lakh crore, or approximately USD 29.1 billion at the CAGR of 22.7%. This is also significantly faster than the growth of other export sectors.

Mobile phone manufacturing: A success story of MII

Secretary, MeitY highlighted that the Make in India achievement really is in a sense premised on the electronics sector and one of the big elements of the electronics sector has been the mobile phones. In 2014 -15 only 26% of the mobile phones which were being sold in India were made in India, the rest were being imported. Today, 99.2% of all mobile phones which are sold in India are made in India.

“We are manufacturing between 325 to 330 million mobile phones a year in India and on an average there are about a billion mobile phones in use in India.We have virtually saturated the domestic market and that's why you see that there's a substantial uptick in the exports of mobile phones.” he added.

The mobile phone export was about ₹1.2 lakh crores in 2023-24 and the exports have increased 77 times from what it was in 2014-15. In 2014-15, mobile phones export was worth about ₹1,566 crore rupees which has reached around ₹1,20,000 crore rupees now.

Secretary, MeitY said,“This is where the Make in India program has been truly successful and the reason for that has been policy support from the government of India, especially in the form of the PLI scheme for mobile sector, which has been amongst the most successful PLI schemes that have been launched.”

Big boost to employment through PLI scheme

Speaking on the PLI scheme for mobile sector, the Secretary, MeitY mentioned that the we have exceeded our overall production target, and have reached ₹6 lakh 661 crore as the total value of production and investment of ₹9,100 crore, which is again well above the investment. The total employment achieved has been 1,22,613, which again is as per the original target of the scheme. “So this has been one of the big stories in the Make in India,and today the electronic sector employs close to about 1.2 million people all over the country” he added.

Semiconductor manufacturing to shape the future of india’s electronics sector

Sh. Krishnan highlighted that setting up a semiconductor manufacturing base in the country has been the other big part of Make in India, which India has been attempting to achieve for over six decades. With the launch of the India Semiconductor Mission and the five major projects which have been approved, starting with Micron, the two projects by Tata Electronics, the one project by CG Power, and the last project by Kaynes, a real manufacturing base of semiconductors in this country is being established in India.

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Dharmendra Tewari/Kshitij Singha