NEW DELHI : The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has begun releasing funds to companies participating in the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom and network products.
About Rs 27.78 crore was released to Tata Group-backed Tejas Network on Thursday. As per DoT officials, the government plans to allocate about Rs 350 crore in the second year to companies like Nokia, Jabil, HFCL, and VVDN that have opted for the scheme. “The DoT has started releasing funds,” said an official. “This year, the government will disburse around Rs 350 crore to companies availing the PLI scheme.”
Launched in 2021 with an outlay of Rs 12,195 crore, the scheme aims to promote domestic manufacturing of telecom and networking products in India. In April 2022, the scheme was amended to incentivise design-led manufacturing with an additional 1% incentive. Currently, 42 companies, including 28 MSMEs, have received government approval under the scheme for telecom and networking products. Of these, 17 firms have applied for additional 1% incentive under design-led manufacturing criteria.
As per the DoT, these 42 companies have committed investments of Rs 4,115 crore, which is projected to generate additional sales of Rs 2.45 lakh crore and create over 44,000 new jobs over the scheme period. As per the scheme guidelines, the quantum of incentives in each year is based on the company’s incremental net sales of approved products under the scheme compared to the net eligible sales in the baseline year (2019-20). Tejas Network said they had received 85% of their total claim for FY23, with the remaining 15% expected to be released later in accordance with the PLI scheme guidelines.
“We thank the Empowered Committee for PLI scheme, DoT, and SIDBI for approving our incentive application for FY23,” said Anand Athreya, CEO and MD of Tejas Networks. “The Government of India’s design-linked PLI is an excellent scheme that has boosted indigenous telecom R&D and manufacturing by kickstarting a virtuous cycle of domestic innovation in this sector.”