India plans PLI scheme for manufacturing of Wearables, AI, IoT

New Delhi: India is planning a big push for the domestic manufacture of new technology devices – including wearables (smartwatches/ fitness trackers), hearables (in-ear wireless hearing devices), drones, virtual/augmented reality and Internet of Things products – in the country this year.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is in the process of chalking out an incentive scheme for manufacturing such devices and expects to launch it in the coming months.

The sops will be in line with the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme launched for mobile phones and components last year and is aimed at capturing the huge, anticipated demand for wearable, hearables as well as IoT and VR devices.


“These devices are becoming quite popular, so the incentive scheme will be targeted at capturing that demand and enabling their manufacturing in India,” said an official aware of the development. Most of these devices are currently imported.

There is demand for 2-3 billion IoT devices currently, and it is expected to increase to 5 billion over the next two-three years, the official added.

The incentive scheme is the latest initiative to drive domestic manufacturing after the ₹50,000-crore package under three schemes to attract large smartphone and component manufacturing companies to set up base here.

ET reported earlier that the government was close to unveiling sops worth ₹7,300 crore for laptops, servers and tablets in the next few weeks.

It is also in the process of once again calling component manufacturers to take advantage of the PLI scheme and has invited applications for semiconductor fabs.

It makes higher business sense for companies to set up chip fabrication units in the country, the official said, adding that India currently accounts for 3.5% of global manufacturing but the percentage will increase significantly going forward.

“We are telling companies to look at the potential of India five years from now and the government is ready to not only offer incentives but also aggregate the demand for the players – be it for the smart cities, IoT devices, industry 4.0, smart metering etc,” the official said.

The current manufacturing push will create a huge base in the country over the next five years, the official added.

The PLI scheme, launched last year, received responses from the likes of iPhone contract makers Foxconn, Pegatron and Wistron, as well as Samsung, Karbonn, Lava and Dixon, and will lead to manufacturing worth ₹11.5 lakh crore.

The success of the scheme, especially the PLI for mobile manufacturing, made the government unveil similar schemes for 10 additional sectors including automobiles, pharmaceuticals, solar and textiles with a total outlay of ₹1.46 lakh crore.