New Delhi: In pursuance of the Prime Minister’s clarion call for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ to bring manufacturing to the center stage and emphasize its significance in driving India’s growth and creating jobs, the Government of India has given the approval to introduce the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for 13 key sectors with a total outlay of Rs. 1,97,291crore.

Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) is coordinating the implementation of all PLI Schemes. DPIIT is also the nodal department for the PLI Scheme for White Goods - Air Conditioners and LED lights sector - with an outlay of Rs. 6,238 crore.

The proposal of DPIIT for the PLI Scheme for White Goods for the manufacture of components and sub-assemblies of ACs and LED Lights was approved by the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 7.04.2021. The Scheme is to be implemented over a seven-year period, from FY2021-22 to FY2028-29 and has an outlay of Rs. 6,238 crore. The Scheme was notified by DPIIT on 16.04.2021. The Scheme Guidelines were published on 04.06.2021. Some modifications to the Scheme Guidelines were issued on 16.08.2021. Applicants were given the flexibility to choose the gestation period either up to March 2022 or up to March 2023.

Applications for the Scheme were invited from 15.06.2021 to 15.09.2021. Total 52 companies filed their application with committed investment of Rs. 5,858 crore under the PLI scheme.

After evaluation of all the applications, 42 applicants with committed investments of Rs 4,614 crore have been provisionally selected as beneficiaries under the PLI scheme. The selected applicants include 26 for Air Conditioner manufacturing with committed investments of Rs. 3,898 crore and 16 for LED Lights manufacturing with committed investments of Rs. 716 crore.

Six applicants proposing FDI from countries sharing a land border with India have been advised to submit approval for FDI in terms of Press Note 3 (2020) dated 17.4.20 for consideration of approval under the PLI Scheme.

Four applicants are being referred to the Committee of Experts (CoE) for examination and its recommendations.

The approved investments of Rs. 4,614crore are likely to generate net incremental production of around Rs. 81,254 crore and direct employment of about 44 thousand people.

The investments in Air Conditioners will lead to manufacturing components across the complete value chain including components that are not manufactured in India with sufficient quantity. At present, there is insignificant manufacturing of certain high-value components of ACs like Compressors, copper tubing, and aluminum stock for foils. Many other components like control assemblies for indoor units (IDU) or outdoor units (ODU), display units, brushless direct current motors, valves, etc. are not manufactured in enough quantity. All these components will now be manufactured in India in significant quantities. Similarly, LED Chip packaging, LED Drivers, LED Engines, LED Light Management Systems, PCBs including metal-clad PCBs and Wire-wound inductors, etc. will be manufactured in India in high quantities. This is a huge step forward for Atmanirbhar Bharat in important sectors of the economy.