The Ministry of Electronics and IT has approved the setting up of a greenfield Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) at Ranjangaon Phase III, near Pune in Maharashtra with an investment of Rs 492.85 crores.

Making this announcement on Monday, the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the EMC at Ranjangaon, Pune will catalyse investments to the tune of over Rs. 2000 crore in the near future and generate employment for over 5,000 people.

“We already have EMCs in Noida, Tirupati, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu – where both multi-national companies and Indian startups 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 them a catalyst for electronics manufacturing in the state,” he added.

The Minister also announced that the Ministry of Electronics and IT plans to give a boost to the Rs 1000 crore Semicon India Future Design programme to support Semiconductor Design Startups in the state and will 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, Shri Chandrasekhar said it has increased to six lakh crores from one lakh crores in 2014.

“While 92% of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were imported in 2014, now 97% of all mobile phones used by Indian customers were domestically manufactured. We had zero exports in electronics manufacturing space in 2014, at present we export equipment worth 70,000 crores,” he explained.