Centre planning a ‘cell city’ for mobile manufacturing in Noida

With the mobile manufactures setting up their units in scattered way across the country, the Centre is mulling setting up a ‘Cell City’ to give a boost to cellular phone manufacturing. The proposed ‘Cell City’ would be developed in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.

“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which is headed by Ravi Shankar Prasad, has asked its officials to send a proposal for developing ‘Cell City’,” a source said, adding that the model of the city would be as like Cyber City in Hyderabad, which is home to more than 1,300 IT and ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) firms.

According to the source, on the receipt of the proposal, the Electronics Ministry would take up the matter with Home Ministry and after its approval; the proposal would be given final shape in consultation with other stakeholders, including Uttar Pradesh government.

Explaining about the need of a dedicated city, the source said, “It’s not that the Centre has planned itself. We are moving in this direction after analysing the data of the recent past that establishes that Noida has become the first choice of all mobile manufactures. The move would also help in creating employment opportunities.”

Almost every mobile phone manufacturer has already started it operations in the city. Indian brands like Lava, Intex and Karbonn have opened their shops. Apart from Indian phone manufacturers, Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron has also started its operation. The Wistron makes phones for LG, China’s OnePlus and Oppo, and Taiwan’s HTC, in partnership with domestic telecom retailer and manufacturer Optiemus.

In addition to these, Chinese vendor -- Water World Technology – has also partnered with a local company UTL Group, which is one of the backers of Karbonn Mobiles.

Stressing on making India a hub of electronics manufacturing, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said, “Electronics manufacturing is a focus of the government as part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative. 

The current investments have resulted in as many as 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.” Recently UP Chief Minister Akhiesh Yadav gave a provisional letter of allotment to Micromax. The company plans to invest Rs 210 crore in its first phase by setting up its unit across 17 acres of land in Greater Noida.

Chinese companies like Gionee and Xiaomi are making their handsets at Foxconn plant in Andhra Pradesh. Domestic companies such as Karbonn, Lava, Micromax, Intex, Jivi, iTel, and MTech have their manufacturing plants in the country.