An apex panel of officials that oversees implementation of the Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) has approved the release of a sum of Rs 1000 crore to eligible firms for the financial year 2023-24, a senior official said.
The approval, the first for the current year, has been granted by the Empowered Committee under PLI for the payment of this incentive amount to companies in the ‘large scale electronics manufacturing’.
The official, however, did not disclose the names of companies whose incentive claims have been cleared. This incentive does not include the contested claim of mobile phone manufacturer Samsung. The pending claim will be settled separately, he added.
Samsung had claimed around Rs 900 crore for phones manufactured till end-FY 21. The officials had doubted that claim and after a scrutiny the incentive pay-out of Rs 500 would be given.
While the 14 manufacturing sectors under PLI have an outlay of Rs 1.98 trillion, so far only Rs 2900 crore has been disbursed till date. For this financial year the PLI outlay (Budget Estimate) is Rs 8083 crore.
Officials, however, say that by the end of this year they would have utilised Rs 13,000 crore of the scheme amount.
The incentive is given for additional production using fresh investments with the sectors. It is 4% to 6% of the incremental sales.
Large scale electronics manufacturing PLI includes mobile phone manufacturing and specified electronic components and has a total outlay of Rs 40,995 crore. It is the most successful part of the PLI scheme which has seen more than 95% of the domestic demand for mobile phones being met locally and exports skyrocketing to $5.62 billion in April-August as against the achievement of $10.9 billion in the whole of FY23.
In large scale electronics manufacturing space 32 applications were approved.
Within 14 industry sectors under the scheme electronics, mobile phones, pharma are doing well while in High Efficiency Solar PV Modules, Advance chemistry Cell (AC) Battery and Speciality Steel the scheme the off-take is slow.
The Empowered Committee on PLI includes Chief Executive Officer of Niti Aayog, Secretaries of Department of Economic Affairs, Expenditure, Revenue, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and Directorate General of Foreign Trade. The committee also has the secretary of the department to which the PLI sector pertains to.
Apart from clearing claims, the committee is also responsible for approving applications from companies for inclusion in the scheme.
Under the PLI scheme, support is given for five years for new units that are given approvals after bidding. So far, 733 applications have been approved and investments of Rs 78,000 crore have been made. PLI applicants have also committed incremental sales of Rs 6 trillion and Rs 2.6 trillion exports.
