Tirupati will soon be India’s largest handset manufacturing hub, till a couple of years back the boast of Sriperumbudur near Chennai.
At its peak, the Nokia Telecom SEZ in Sriperumbudur spread over 211 acres had over 30,000 workers, with Nokia alone employing 6,000. However, Nokia shut down its plant two years ago, and mobile manufacturing in the area came down crashing.
Shri Venkateswara Mobile and Electronics Manufacturing, India’s first mobile manufacturing electronics hub located opposite Tirupati airport, will produce the largest volume of mobile handsets from a single location in a year or two, according to Murali Retineni, Executive Director, Celkon Impex Pvt Ltd, which itself will start production in the hub by July or August.
The new electronics hub at Tirupati will produce around 20 lakh handsets every month, he said. Micromax, Karbonn and Lava are awaiting various approvals, he told newspersons on the sidelines of the launch of Celkon’s 4G tablet personal computers.
The domestic manufacturers will make Tirupati their destination to have their second plant. Celkon has a plant in Hyderabad, Lava in Gurgaon, Micromax in Rudrapur and Karbonn in Delhi, he said.
Last October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the 112-acre Shri Venkateswara Mobile and Electronics Manufacturing Hub.
When fully ready, this hub is expected to create over 10,000 jobs within a year and contribute at least 5 per cent of the all-India target of 15 lakh jobs by the year 2019, according to Indian Cellular Association.
Celkon will invest ₹50 crore in the Tirupati facility, which is expected to produce various range of handsets. In the first phase, it plans to produce nearly four lakh handsets and employ around 1,000 people, he said.