Making this announcement, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in New Delhi, “We already have EMCs in Noida, Tirupati, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu - wherein both multi-national companies and Indian start-ups have set up their units. The Government of India is the enabling partner in these EMCs and it is working in tandem with the State Governments to make these EMCs a catalyst for electronics manufacturing in the State.” He further added that the EMC at Ranjangaon, Pune will catalyse investments to the tune of over ₹2000 crore in the near future and generate employment for over 5,000 people.
The Minister also announced that the Ministry of Electronics and IT plans to give a boost to the 1000 Crore Semicon India Future Design programme to support semiconductor design start-ups in the state and shall soon visit Maharashtra for a roadshow. He informed that C-DAC, Pune shall be the nodal office for this purpose.
Stating that electronics manufacturing has seen an exponential rise after Prime Minister Modi took over in 2014, Chandrasekhar said it has increased to six lakh crores from one lakh crores in 2014.
“While 92 per cent of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were imported in 2014, now 97 per cent of all mobile phones used by Indian customers are domestically manufactured. We had zero exports in electronics manufacturing space in 2014, at present we export equipment worth 70,000 crores,” he elaborated.
Politics over projects
The approval for the EMC was given to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and the State Government’s State Industrial Agency. “Both Chief Minister Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis are committed to the development of the electronics sector in the State. They both have proactively followed up with the Centre for this EMC at Ranjangaon, Pune,” said Chandrasekhar.
While the Maharashtra Government welcomed the Government’s step, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena alleged that the Government is trying to save its face from the wrath of Maharashtra people. Sena alleged that Vedanta project of ₹1.53 lakh crore chip factory and ₹22,000-crore Tata-Airbus transport aircraft projects were taken to Gujarat when Maharashtra was ready to welcome the project and discussions on the same were nearly completed.