The government has set up around six task forces to provide market support to telecom equipment makers, who expressed concern about the import of network gear from China, which is being routed through other neighbouring countries. The announcement came following a meeting between the government and more than 40 chief executive officers (CEOs) of telecom gear companies that have qualified for the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom and networking products.
According to Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology and Railways, the government will come up with a methodology to check imports from neighbouring nations, which are non-compliant with trusted source rules of the telecom sector. He added that many new ideas came during the meeting, for which the government has set up five to six task forces. A task force has been set up to create the component ecosystem. Another task force has been set up for developing four to five chips and then taking those chips from design to production. A third task force has been set up to develop highly skilled workers and designers in the telecom sector. He further informed that the companies asked for support in testing and certification, which is required for exporting products, for which another task force has been set up to optimise the use of test beds in IIT Madras. Another task force has been created to aggregate demand under various government departments such as railways, power and defence, and channelise it to manufacturers under the PLI scheme.
According to Paritosh Prajapati, CEO, GX Group, the support from the government has morally boosted the company’s investors to invest more in the Indian market for export to the European Union and set up India as a global electronics hub. The company has asked the government to incentivise people who have Indian intellectual property rights (IPR) in design and software.
Meanwhile, Ganesh Jivani, managing director and CEO, Matrix Comsec, said that his company has asked the government for a relaxation of the investment threshold for domestic companies that already have excess manufacturing capacity and support to boost exports.
Further, Saiko Thomas, director, Netlink ICT Private Limited, expressed that Chinese products are entering the Indian market through Bangladesh and some of them are coming directly. Many fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) players in small cities are installing them. The last mile FTTH players are estimated to account for 50 per cent market share in the segment. The government has assured domestic companies that they would work on it.
