The Indian mobile manufacturing industry is expected to touch Rs 1,32,000 crores by the end of 2018, Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
“India manufactured about 110 million mobile phones in 2015-16 as compared to 60 million in 2014-15 showing a growth of over 90 percent. In value terms, India’s mobile manufacturing industry produced mobile phones worth Rs 54,000 crore in 2015-16 compared to Rs 18,900 crore in 2014-15. The same reached Rs 94,000 crore by end of 2017,” said Prasad.
In 2017 the Indian mobile manufacturing industry produced 22 million mobile phones. By 2020, the minister said this number would touch 50 million.
In terms of electronics manufacturing units, Prasad said the industry added 120 units in three years, two-thirds of which are mobile manufacturing units. These industries employed five lakh peoples.
Prasad opined that the BPO industry should move to small towns where overhead costs are less compared to big cities. He further said about 86 new BPOs are operating in 27 states excluding digitally rich areas. BPO centers have already come up in Patna and Muzaffarpur, while such centers would soon be opened in smaller cities like Ghazipur, Jahanabad, and Gaya, he said.
“The government will give a grant of Rs. 5 crore to start-ups doing innovation in the field of cyber security and healthcare,” he added.
The minister also mentioned the increasing adoption of the Umang (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) app and the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app that enables secure cashless payments through mobile phones.