Make in India: Govt to boost Noida-Gr Noida 'Cell City'

With over 32 mobile manufacturers establishing their units in Noida and Greater Noida, the government advances its move to develop the twin cities of Uttar Pradesh as 'Cell City' or mobile manufacturing hub to give a push to Make in India programme, which is flagship project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Talking to Millennium Post, Union Electronics & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the Centre is working in this direction.

"The Centre is planning to develop Noida and Greater Noida as a model electronic city, which will be a hub of electronic manufacturers. Till date, 32 electronic companies and 40 electronic component manufacturing companies have already established their units in the city under the Make in India initiative of the government," the minister said.

"As we have a dynamic Prime Minister at the Centre and hardworking Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the state, both the cities would get a major facelift and developed as Singapore of the country during the BJP regime," the minister said on the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.

"Electronics manufacturing is a focus of the government as part of the 'Make in India' initiative. The current investments have resulted in over 40,000 direct jobs and over 1.2 lakh indirect employment. We estimate that mobile phone production will reach a level of around 500 million devices by 2019-20," the minister said.

Present on the occasion, UP's Minister of Infrastructure & Industrial Development Satish Mahana said, "The UP government will work towards developing both the cities as electronics and cell city. Since over 32 mobile companies have already established their manufacturing units; it will give a big push to the implementation of our initiatives to create employment in the state."

Millennium Post had first reported in September last year about such proposal of the government. The plan is to develop the twin cities as a model city on the lines of Cyber City in Hyderabad, which is home to more than 1,300 IT and ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) firms.

Almost every mobile phone manufacturer has already started its operations in the city. Indian brands like Lava, Intex and Karbonn have opened their shops. Apart from Indian phone manufacturers, South Korean multinational Samsung has also started making phones from its Noida-based manufacturing unit.