Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Says Mobile Manufacturing Industry to Touch Rs 1,32,000 Crore by 2018

Indian mobile manufacturing industry is expected to touch Rs 1,32,000 crore by end of 2018, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister, of Electronics & Information Technology said at an Assocham event held in New Delhi today. India manufactured about 110 million mobile phones in 2015-16 as compared to 60 million in 2014-15 showing a growth of over 90%. In value terms, India’s mobile manufacturing industry produced mobile phones worth Rs 54,000 crore in FY15-16 compared to Rs 18,900 crore in FY14-15. The same reached Rs 94,000 crore by end of 2017, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister, of Electronics & Information Technology at MeitY – Assocham–Ericsson Joint ICT Start-Ups Awards–2018.

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In terms of volume, in 2014 India produced 5 core mobile phone made locally in India which reached to 15 crores in 2015-16. In 2017 the Indian mobile manufacturing industry produced 22 million mobile phones. ‘The industry would produce 50 million mobile phones by 2020,’ said the minister. In terms of electronics manufacturing units, the minister said within three years, the industry added 120 such units. Two-third of these are mobile manufacturing units and there 54 such units in Noida alone. On top of that these industries employ 5 lakh people,” he added.

Mr Prasad further said that India has the world’s third-largest start-up community after US and England. He said that his ministry is working in mission mode to make India’s digital sector $1 trillion economy in next five years and has potential to create 50 lakh to 70 lakh new jobs. Union Electronic and IT Minister said BPO industry should move to small towns where overhead costs are less compared to big cities. About 48,000 seats have been planned with distribution across states and UTs based on population percentage.

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It excluded metro cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, National Capital Region, Pune and North Eastern states. He further said, about 86 new BPOs operating in 27 states excluding digitally rich areas. BPO centres have already come up in Patna and Muzaffarpur, while such centres would soon be opened in smaller cities like Ghazipur, Jahanabad and Gaya etc, he said.

‘The government will give the grant of Rs. 5 crores to start-ups doing innovation in the field of cybersecurity and healthcare”, said Mr Prasad. Mr Prasad said today 250 hospitals across the country have been turned into e-hospitals and more than 2 crores of patients are taking benefits of the e-hospitals.

eNAM has linked more than 500 market mandis with 70 lakhs of farmers negotiating their price, Union Electronic and IT Minister said. The Minister also mentioned the increasing adoption of the Umang (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) app, Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app that enables secure cashless payments through mobile phones.

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