Drone industry flies on PLI wings, records seven-fold growth

New Delhi, June 14 (KNN) The production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme has particularly given major boost to the drone sector which has seen a seven times jump in turnover consisting of all MSMEs and Start-ups, said Rajesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, DPIIT on Tuesday.

Highlighting the aim of the PLI scheme to push government’s Make in India objective, he informed that the government has approved 733 applications from manufacturers across 14 sectors as on date.

This includes 176 MSME beneficiaries in sectors such as bulk drugs, medical devices, pharma, telecom, white goods, food processing, textiles and drones, he said.

Till December-end 2022, the MSME beneficiary count was more than 100, according to the Economic Survey for 2022-23.

“Particularly the drones sector has seen seven times jump in turnover due to the PLI Scheme which consists of all MSME and Start-ups while under the PLI Scheme for food processing, sourcing of raw materials from India has seen a significant increase which has positively impacted income of Indian farmers and MSMEs,” Commerce Ministry said in a statement on the event. 

PLI Scheme has led to major smartphone companies shifting its suppliers to India, e.g., Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron. As a result, top high-end phones are being manufactured in India. It has also resulted in a 20-fold increase in women employment and localization in IT Hardware such as Battery & Laptops, he said.

Secretary, DPIIT further said that the value addition in mobile manufacturing in India is to the tune of 20%.

“We have been able to increase the value addition in mobile manufacturing to 20% within a period of 3 years whereas countries like Vietnam achieved 18% value addition over 15 years and China achieved 49% value addition in over 25 years. Seen in this perspective, it is a big achievement,” Singh added. (KNN Bureau)