Centre setting up telecom equipment manufacturing zones: Union Minister Scindia

CHENNAI: The government of India is setting up telecommunication equipment manufacturing zones in the country, as the sector is expected to go through a revolution in attracting foreign direct investments, Union Minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia said on Friday.

The Union Minister for Communications and Development of North Eastern region, said the country during the last 10 years exported mobile phones worth Rs 1.28 lakh crore under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Recalling that India imported the majority of mobile phones and shipped just Rs 1,500 crore worth of mobiles to overseas, he said, "we became the second largest producer of mobile phones in the world with 30 crore of mobile phones being produced in India." "Value addition (in mobile phones) has gone up by 20 per cent and that has happened because our government has changed the FDI norm," he said at an event here.

Elaborating, he said, "India had close to USD 98 billion of FDI and in the last 10 years. We have grown by 60 per cent to Rs 160 billion FDI. The same revolution will happen in the telecom sector".

"With USD 39 billion worth of FDI, now it is time for the telecom equipment manufacturing sector to go through the same revolution. We had the fastest 5G roll out in India and 98 per cent of our cities have been covered," he said.

Scindia said PM Modi has mandated that the government-owned telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) would set up its 4G services based on indigenous 4G stack.

"We are the sixth country in the world to produce our own 4G telecom stack and we would have rolled out 1 lakh towers by mid next year and by mid 2025, we would have ensured 4G saturation across India," he said.

Scindia along with Tamil Nadu Minister for Industries TRB Rajaa were here at the inauguration of the first manufacturing facility of US-based network equipment maker Cisco. Accompanied by senior officials, the ministers visited the manufacturing facilities later.

Sharing some images later in the day, Scindia on his social media post said: "Telecom transformation, technological triumph. On our mission to make India the global telecom manufacturing hub, inaugurated the CISCO-FLEX manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur." The state-of-the-art facility would fuel India's growth through employment generation, innovation and world-class ideas, while showcasing the power of 'Made in India' products, he said.

Tamil Nadu Industries Minister Rajaa said the state-of-the-art facility of Cisco would cement state's position as the advanced electronics capital of India.

The factory would manufacture Network Convergence System routers, bringing more high quality jobs to the state, he said.

The Sriperumbudur facility of Cisco would also export the products to Mexico, Japan, Australia, Netherlands and the United States of America, he said.

"With facilities like these, Tamil Nadu is cementing its position as the Advance Electronics Capital of India. Under the leadership of Chief Minister M K Stalin, the government of Tamil Nadu is committed to supporting high-tech companies like Cisco and we will go the extra mile to ensure that their entire supply chain is localised," he said.

It would ensure further growth of the micro, small and medium enterprise sector and in turn create more jobs for the state, he added.