India government has extended the last date for submitting applications under the design-led manufacturing scheme till August 25.

The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) had notified the design-led production-linked scheme (PLI) scheme on February 24, 2021, with a financial outlay of Rs 12,195 crore ($1.53 billion).

India has amended the guidelines for the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom and networking products with effect from April 1, to introduce design-led manufacturing with additional one percent incentive rates.

The date for the registration process for design-led manufacturing under the PLI scheme started from June 21.

Earlier, India extended the last date for submission of the application till August 5.

DoT in June announced an incentive scheme for design-led manufacturing, along with extending the duration of production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme by a year.

DoT also approved addition of 11 new telecom and networking products to the existing list, based on suggestions from the stakeholders.

The design-Led manufacturing is primarily aimed to support efforts for designing telecom products in India.

India government, which is encouraging local manufacturing, has approved addition of 11 new telecom and networking products to the existing list, and announced to give an additional incentive rate of 1 percent over and above existing incentive rates.

Rating agency ICRA in April 2022 said India has emerged as the second largest manufacturer of mobile handsets in the world in terms of volumes after China, growing at a CAGR of 50 percent during FY2015-21 on a low base.

Though, India witnessed considerable growth in production, the amount of value addition remained low as almost 80-90 percent of the components continue to be manufactured outside due to weak component manufacturing ecosystem.

Key challenges faced by manufacturers in India include lack of R&D infrastructure, high capital and logistics costs, muted private sector interest and weak backward linkages.

PLI scheme will enable domestic sourcing or localization to improve from current 15-20 percent to 35-40 percent in case of mobile phones aided by economies of scale supporting local manufacturing of certain components starting with chargers, batteries, cameras, displays, PCB design and assembly.