With Yogi Adityanath government’s initiatives, the Digital India campaign has gained momentum while there is a record investment in the information technology (IT) sector in the state.
As a result, Uttar Pradesh is emerging fast as a major centre of mobile phone manufacturing in the country with several companies like Oppo, Vivo, Samsung, Lava and Formi all set to set up their units in the state.
An official spokesman of the government said here on Saturday that the day was not far away when UP would become the biggest hub of mobile phone manufacturing with both domestic and foreign companies having their factories and billions of people talking on mobile handsets made in UP.
According to officials of these mobile phone manufacturing giants, Uttar Pradesh has made remarkable progress under the Digital India campaign in mobile phone manufacturing. Big companies have made huge investments in the state due to the investment-friendly policies of the UP government in the field of electronic manufacturing.
Senior UP minister and government spokesman Sidharth Nath Singh said that the picture was entirely different four years ago, when no one could have even imagined setting up a factory to make mobile handsets in the state.
It is worth mentioning here that in the year 2014, only six crore mobile handsets were manufactured in the country, which increased to 11 crore in the year 2015-16 and 17.5 crore in 2016-17.
Now, Vivo’s factory coming up in the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority area is expected to start producing 12 crore mobile handsets alone soon. Vivo Mobile Pvt Ltd is setting up a factory to manufacture mobile handsets with an investment of Rs 7,000 crore in Sector 24 of YEIDA. Six crore mobile sets will be made in the first phase of this factory being set up on 169 acres of land. In the second phase, the capacity of this factory will be increased in order to produce 12 crore mobile handsets every year. Vivo’s factory in YEIDA will provide employment to 60,000 people.
As for the government, it would get revenue in the form of goods and services tax (GST) from every mobile made by Vivo in its UP unit, the spokesman said.
Besides Vivo, China's big company Oppo Mobile India Private Limited is setting up its factory in Greater Noida at the cost of Rs 2,000 crore to manufacture smartphones. Similarly, Holitech India Private Ltd is setting up a mobile phone display unit in Greater Noida itself. Land has been allotted for the mobile phone display unit to be set up with an investment of Rs 1,772 crore. Lava Electronics has established its factory in Noida and is manufacturing mobile handsets there. Samsung set up its factory for mobile phone manufacturing in Noida last year.
Apart from this, impressed with the investor-friendly policies of the Yogi Adityanath government, Formi Trading Private Limited is setting up a factory to make mobile handsets in Greater Noida and KHY Electronics India Private Limited in Noida. Renowned Chinese company Sunwoda Electronics has also shown interest in setting up a factory to manufacture smartphones, lithium batteries and plastic mobile cases in Greater Noida. Sanvoda has decided to set up its factory in Greater Noida at an estimated cost of Rs 1,500 crore.
So, people no longer have to depend on the manufacturing units of China to get their preferred mobile phones as it would be available in UP soon. The spokesman said that the companies being set up in UP would make crores of mobile handsets every year, meeting more than half of the demand for mobile handsets in the country.
On the investment being made in UP for making mobile handsets, officials of the Electronic and Information Technology (IT) department say that the state government's IT and Manufacturing Policy 2017 has contributed immensely to the development of the mobile manufacturing sector in the state. It has created new job opportunities also.
According to these officials, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are some of the states that are promoting manufacturing of mobile handsets in the country.