The union cabinet on Wednesday approved a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme worth Rs 12,195 crore for the telecom sector in order to reduce current import worth Rs 50,000 crore and strengthen MSMEs growth.
In a media briefing, Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "As a result of PLI scheme for telecom equipment, the government hopes to have incremental production of Rs 2,44,200 crore in the sector, exports worth Rs 1,95,360 crore, 40,000 new jobs, and Rs 17,000 worth of tax revenue in the coming five years".
The PLI scheme for the telecom sector will be implemented from April 1, 2021, the IT minister said. He also informed that the Centre will also come up with a PLI scheme to encourage the production of laptops and tablet PCs in the country.
He further said that the PLI scheme will cover core transmission equipment, 4G/5G and next-generation radio access network and wireless equipment, access and customer premise equipment (CPE), Internet of Things (IoT) access devices, and enterprise equipment such as switches and router. Additionally, the MSMEs will be allowed to invest in more than one product category in order to meet the government's minimum investment and sales criteria with the implementation of the scheme.
According to Prasad, the eligibility for the scheme will be subject to achievement of a minimum threshold of cumulative incremental investment and incremental sales of manufactured goods net of taxes, the government release said. Financial Year 2019-20 shall be treated as the Base Year for computation of cumulative incremental sales of manufactured goods net of taxes, he added.