Government Sets Up Task Force To Revive Domestic Mobile

He said sub-committees will be formed under this group to carry out various tasks, adding that promoting manufacturing will also have a positive impact on the prices of mobile handsets and they will come down.

In India, Samsung and Micromax currently engage in the large-scale manufacturing of handsets. Nokia operated the world's largest manufacturing facility at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu which was shut down in November on tax and labour issues.

All the other players import their products mostly from China, followed by Vietnam.

The estimated domestic mobile handset market size is 75,000 crore ($12 billion) in 2014, of which handsets worth 58,550 crore are imported.

For 2015, the estimated market size is 1 lakh crore, with imports accounting for 75,500 crore.

The task force has to create a roadmap to align technology, demand, standards and regulations for enhancing the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing across the supply chain for manufacturing mobile phone.

"(One of the tasks is) To promote research and development for mobile phone products and services for meeting the infrastructure needs of domestic and global market," the government note said.

The task force has members like Josh Foulger, president and director, India Operations Programme and president, Nokia Special Economic Zone, Hari Om Hari; Lava co-founder Kenichiro Hibi; managing director, Sony India, Sandeep Bhargava; director, government relations, Microsoft Devices India, Soon H Kwon; and co-founder, Micromax Informatics, Vikas Jain, among others as its members.

The other members are S.P. Kochar, chief executive officer, Telecom Sector Skill Council; Sudhir Hasija, co-founder Karbonn Mobile; Dilip Modi, chairman, Spice Corporation; Asha Nangia, director, DeitY; S.K. Marwah, director, DeitY and Gautam Ray, ex-joint secretary, TRU.