The government on Wednesday said firms such as Ericsson and Nokia are keen to expand their operations in India, and global companies like Samsung, Cisco, Ciena and Foxconn have "shown interest" to set up a manufacturing base in the country for telecom and networking products for domestic and export markets.

Most of the global industry leaders are keen to expand or set up a manufacturing base in India and are "positive" about the kind of incentives proposed under the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, said an official release outlining the status of the ambitious scheme for telecom and networking products that seeks to position India as a global hub of manufacturing telecom gear.

"Companies like Ericsson Sweden and Nokia Finland are keen to expand their existing operation in India for the global supply chain. Global telecom companies like Samsung South Korea, Cisco USA, Ciena USA, and Engineering Manufacturing Services (EMS) companies like Jabil USA, Foxconn Taiwan, Sanmina USA and Flex USA have shown interest to set up manufacturing in India for telecom and networking products for domestic as well as export markets," the release said.

Indian manufacturers like VVDN Technologies (Gurugram), Dixon (Noida), HFCL, Coral Telecom and Sterlite have also shown interest in the Rs 12,195 crores scheme, that was notified in February, 2021.

The PLI scheme in telecom and networking products aims to make India a global hub of manufacturing telecom equipment, including core transmission equipment, 4G/5G next-generation Radio Access Network and wireless equipment, access and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), Internet of Things (IoT) access devices, other wireless equipment and enterprise equipment like switches, routers amongst others.

It is estimated that full utilisation of the scheme funds is likely to lead to incremental production of around Rs 2.4 lakh crore with exports of around Rs 2 lakh crore over five years.

The scheme is expected to bring in investment of around Rs 3,000 crore and generate huge direct and indirect employment.

The investor will be incentivised for incremental sales up to 20 times the committed investment enabling them to reach global scales and utilise their unused capacity and ramp up production.

The core component of the scheme is to offset the huge import of telecom equipment worth over Rs 50,000 crore and reinforce it with ''Made in India'' products both for domestic markets and exports.

The target is to make India a preferred global manufacturing destination for telecom products as also a net exporter of telecom and networking products.

An extensive outreach program with the support of Invest India team is being planned.

This will cover one-to-one meeting with potential investors, participation in global outreach events organised by industry associations, microsite for the scheme on the Invest India website, separate interactive website for applications as well as selected vendors for the entire scheme interface, the release added.