Government picks 42 white goods firms for Production Linked Incentive

The government on Wednesday said it has ‘provisionally selected’ 42 air-conditioner and LED manufacturers, including Daikin, Blue Star, Panasonic, Syska and Orient Electric, with committed investment of ₹4,614 crore as beneficiaries under Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for white goods.

“The approved investments of ₹4,614crore are likely to generate net incremental production of around ₹81,254 crore and direct employment for about 44,000 people,” the Minister of Commerce and Industry said in a statement.

It added that a total of 52 companies had filed applications with committed investment of ₹5,858 crore under the scheme and after evaluation of all the applications, 42 firms have been provisionally selected as beneficiaries. 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.

Applicants provisionally selected include Daikin Airconditioning India, Amber Enterprises India Ltd, PG Technoplast, Hindalco Industries, Mettube India, Blue Star Climatech, Havells India, Johnson Controls Hitachi Air Conditioning India Ltd, Voltas, Bhagwati Products, IFB Industries, Panasonic India, Dixon Technologies, Syska LED Lights, Surya Roshni and Orient Electric.

The PLI Scheme for White Goods for manufacture of components and sub-assemblies of ACs and LED Lights was approved by the Cabinet in April this year. The Scheme is to be implemented over a seven-year period, from FY2021-22 to FY2028-29 and has an outlay of ₹6,238 crore.

“Six applicants proposing FDI from countries sharing land border with India have been advised to submit approval for FDI 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 Ministry added.

“The investments in air conditioners will lead to manufacturing components across the complete value chain including components which are not manufactured in India with sufficient quantity,” it said.

Further, the government said that the investments in air conditioners will lead to manufacturing components across the complete value chain including components which 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 aluminium stock for foils, it added. “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,” it said.

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.