CHENNAI : The government is keen to revive the Nokia facility at Sriperumbudur, according to law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. “Nokia was left like an orphaned child... We also tried with one or two companies but it didn’t work out. However, we are in talks and are confident of arriving at a solution soon,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event held by the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Sunday.
The Finnish firm was one of the largest employers here when the facility was functioning at full capacity. It had provided jobs to around 8,000 people. The Chennai factory was left out of the $7.2-billion deal signed between Microsoft and Nokia in 2014 as it was mired in a tax dispute.The minister also said that as many as 108 mobile manufacturing companies have come up in the country generating over three lakh jobs, including indirect jobs.
On the proposal by Apple Inc to set up a manufacturing facility in India, he said talks are still on. “India is transforming into a $1 trillion dollar digital economy and with that lot of business prospects are also there and it has to be here to gain from that,” he added.
In a move to increase digital inclusion, he said, “We have planned 23 BPOs in Tamil Nadu and 16 are already operational,” adding that nearly half of all employees were women in these units. BPOs are already functional in Coimbatore, Mayiladuthurai, Tiruchirapalli and other cities.
“In the BPO jobs the potential is 2,700 seats in total. Initial employment has been given to 2,500 people”, he said.