NEW DELHI: The IT and electronics ministry is likely to go to the Cabinet with a new production-linked incentive scheme for electronics components as the government looks to go deeper into the manufacturing supply chain. Also, the government plans to extend the import authorisation scheme for laptop imports by another three months after the end of this year.
Sources said the IT ministry is drafting a Cabinet note on the matter as it plans to reduce the dependence of Indian electronics makers on component imports from China and other competing economies.
“Work on the Cabinet note is on, and we intend to move on this front soon,” a top source said, adding India will gain further inroads into the component ecosystem once the incentive scheme is rolled out.
It is believed that the PLI scheme will have incentives worth thousands of crores of rupees and will come with conditions around incentives and job creation. On the front of laptops and other IT hardware products such as tablets, the govt will extend the current import management system by another three months post December 31. This is being done so that there are “no disruptions” in the supply of the products, sources said.
Beyond this, importers will need to apply for fresh authorisations as per new import guidelines.
After massive protests by laptop makers, the government rolled back import restrictions and replaced them with ‘import authorisation’ in August 2023 to monitor imports.