Leading electronic manufacturers on Wednesday has asked the government for opening up of manufacturing and retail shops, especially for mobile phones in the next few weeks.

They suggested that the government can take a phased approach, where retail is opened in semi-urban and towns, and e-commerce in metros. Enterprise ICT sector catering to data centres and control rooms can also be opened up fully as it has limited public interface and will not compromise the fight against Covid.

In a meeting with Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Electronics and IT, the manufacturers and associations also said that this industry constitutes the very heart of the digital infrastructure on which the economy is running on.

The industry representatives presented “Restart, Restore and Resurgence” model to capture the global opportunity in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector.

Representatives from manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Foxconn, Lava, Wistron, Oppo, Flex, Sterlite, Micromax, Deki Electronics, Tejas Networks and Panasonic also attended the meeting.

Majority of the participants appreciated the new trilogy of schemes of MeitY -- PLI, SPECS and EMC2.0 -- to support the electronics manufacturing sector. Industry raised various issues related to working of factories, logistics, export, supply chain disruption and demand shock due to COVID-19.

"MAIT recommended for 6 per cent PLI to all of the electronics categories to attract the Migrating Ships of Manufacturing leaving China to India's shores.Third and most importantly to increase value addition in our country it is very essential to declare the electronics sector as a priority sector, wherein a Central National policy (including land clearances, labour laws, taxation, licenses, incentives) are applicable across the country," George Paul, Chief Executive Officer, Manufacturers Association for Information Technology (MAIT), said.

He said this will give India the ability to be agile like China, Vietnam, and compete with them to attract manufacturing into India.

Prasad said the requests regarding broadening the definition of essential goods to ICT products, retail/online sale of ICT essential goods have already been taken up with Ministry of Home Affairs.

Apart from MAIT, other industry participants include Indian Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA), India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA) and Consumer Electronics & Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA).

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