The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is reportedly holding discussions with other ministries to finalise the list of consumer electronic products whose chipsets will be given priority for incentives under the design linked incentive (DLI) 2.0 scheme. The push comes as the government plans to roll out the scheme by the end of the year.
MeitY is currently mapping domestic demand for around 30 devices and appliances, drawing inputs from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) as well as trade value chain assessments from the Commerce Department.
These are also among the products that the government may later bring under local sourcing mandates. MeitY has stated that this approach would help create a ready domestic market for chips being manufactured in the country.
Meanwhile, semiconductor industry leaders have indicated that their future investments in India will depend on how successfully the chipsets produced locally are absorbed in the domestic market. MeitY believes that combining incentive support with local sourcing regulations will help ensure stable demand for locally manufactured chips.
Launched in December 2021, the DLI scheme provides financial support and design infrastructure to strengthen India’s semiconductor chip design ecosystem. It aims to assist domestic companies in developing and deploying designs for integrated circuits (ICs), chipsets, and systems on chips (SoCs) by supporting design prototyping, scaling, and commercial production. So far, the government has approved 23 chip design projects under the Rs 10 billion scheme.
