Pune: As part of its drive to strengthen electronics manufacturing ecosystem in India, the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) has approved the greenfield electronics manufacturing cluster (EMC) with the project cost of ₹492.85 crores to be set up in Ranjangaon Phase III, near Pune in Maharashtra.
Announcing this at a function held in Ranjangaon, Union minister of state, MeitY, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the upcoming EMC at near Pune would catalyse investments to the tune of over ₹2000 crore in the near future & generate employment for over 5,000 people.
“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 Central government 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,” said the minister.
Chandrasekhar also announced that the MeitY had 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.
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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 his deputy 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,” said the Union minister.
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 Narendra Modi took over in 2014, Chandrasekhar said the sector has grown to ₹6 lakh crores from ₹1 lakh crores in 2014. “Earlier, 92% of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were imported till 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, the minister said that the EMC now boasts of India’s first lithium cell manufacturing plant.
