Munoth Industries announced the setting up of India’s first Lithium-ion cell manufacturing plant – with an investment of Rs 799 crore — for the mobile phone industry.

The proposed manufacturing plant, which will have a capacity of 1 million Ah per day, will come up at Electronic Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) 2, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.

The current consumption of batteries is approx. 400 – 450 million per annum for mobile phones including replacement and about 100 million per year for power banks. At present, India imports Lithium-ion cells and battery packs are assembled in India using the imported cells.

The company has been allotted 30 acres of land by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) and has received all the required approvals from Tirupati Urban Development Authority (TUDA) and Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) on M-SIPS benefits.

“The M-SIPS approval for this project was given by the Ministry in record time which is a clear testament of the Government’s increasing focus on enhancing ease of doing business and our commitment to support the establishment of components/core-components manufacturing eco-system,” Ajay Prakash Sawhney, secretary, Ministry of Electronics & IT, said.

The first phase of the project will be operational by March 2019 and the second and third phases by 2022.

“We are looking at achieving a market share of approximately 6% of the total number of batteries consumed in the Mobile phone industry in India during the 1st phase of production. We will be looking at recruiting 1700 people for this three-phase project,” said Jaswant Munoth, chairman, Munoth Industries.