As part of its objective to strengthen the electronics manufacturing ecosystem in India, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has approved the greenfield Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) with the project cost of Rs 492.85 crores to be set up in Ranjangaon Phase III, near Pune in Maharashtra.
Making this announcement, the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “We already have EMCs in Noida, Tirupati, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu – wherein both multi-national companies and Indian startups have set up their units. The Government of India is the enabling partner in these EMCs and it is working in tandem with the state governments to make these EMCs a catalyst for the electronics manufacturing in the state.” He further added that the EMC at Ranjangaon, Pune will catalyse investments to the tune of over Rs. 2000 crore in the near future & generate employment for over 5,000 people.
The Minister also announced that the Ministry of Electronics and IT plans to give a boost to the 1000 Crore Semicon India Future Design programme to support Semiconductor Design Startups in the state and shall soon visit Maharashtra for a roadshow. He informed that C-DAC, Pune shall be the nodal office for this purpose.
The approval for the EMC was given to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and the State government’s State Industrial Agency. “Both Chief Minister eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis are committed to the development of electronics sector in the State. They both have proactively followed up with the Centre for this EMC at Ranjangaon, Pune,” he said.
He said that post Covid, it has become very competitive for the countries/states to corner the opportunities that have sprung up following disruptions in global value chains and supply chains. Stating that electronics manufacturing has seen an exponential rise after Prime Minister Modi took over in 2014, Minister Chandrasekhar said it has increased to six lakh crores from one lakh crores in 2014.
“While 92% of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were imported in 2014, now 97% of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were domestically manufactured. We had zero exports in electronics manufacturing space in 2014, at present we export equipment worth 70,000 crores,” he elaborated.
Citing the example of EMC at Tirupati, the foundation stone of which was laid out in 2015 by the Prime Minister & now boasts of India’s first Lithium Cell manufacturing plant, the Minister affirmed that these EMCs will prove to be the pivot points around which the electronics manufacturing and design ecosystem shall flourish in the years to come – taking India towards its target of US $300 Bn of electronics manufacturing by 2025/26.
