The Central government on Wednesday said it has provisionally approved proposals of 42 companies including Daikin, Blue Star, Voltas, Panasonic, Syska and Havells, under the PLI scheme for white goods. These players have committed a total investment of ₹4,614 crore for making ACs and LED lights components.
Significantly, six applicants, which proposed FDI from countries sharing a land border with India, specifically China, have been advised to submit approval for FDI (under Press Note 3) for considering their proposals under the PLI scheme. These include proposals from Haier India, Midea India, Hi-Volt Enterprises, Chenfeng Tech, Halonix Technologies and Fulham (India).
“After evaluation of all the applications, 42 applicants with committed investment of ₹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 ₹3,898 crore and 16 for LED lights manufacturing with committed investments of ₹716 crore,” said the Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) in a statement.
‘Production multiplier’
A total of 52 companies had submitted their application to avail benefits under the government’s PLI scheme with an outlay of ₹6,238 crore. “Four applicants are being referred to the Committee of Experts for examination and its recommendations,” the statement added. The approved investment proposals are likely to generate net incremental production of around ₹81,254 crore and direct employment of about 44,000 people, the official statement added.
Other companies who have got the nod for the scheme include Amber Enterprises India Ltd, PG Technoplast, Hindalco Industries, Mettube India, Johnson Controls Hitachi Air Conditioning India , IFB Industries and Dixon Devices, among others.
The government believes that these investments will enable the manufacturing of components in the AC sector across the complete value chain including components that are currently not being manufactured in sufficient quantities.
Scaling production
“At present, there is insignificant manufacturing of certain high value components of ACs like compressors, copper tubing and aluminium stock for foils. Many other components like control assemblies for indoor or outdoor units, display units, brushless direct current motors and valves are not manufactured in enough quantity. All these components will now be manufactured in India in significant quantities,” it added.
Also, 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.