“We have been eagerly looking forward to an opportunity to shift our entire mobile R&D, design and manufacturing from China to India,” Hari Om Rai, Chairman and Managing Director of Lava said. “With the production linked incentives, our manufacturing disabilities for the world market would largely be met hence we plan to make this shift,” Rai added.

Lava currently follows a two-pronged strategy for its exports - one by selling phones under its brand name and another by manufacturing or customizing products for electronic companies.

The PLI scheme extends an incentive of 4 per cent to 6 per cent on incremental sales (over base year) of goods manufactured in India and covered under target segments, to eligible companies, for a period of five years, subsequent to the base year as defined.

It was launched as the domestic electronics hardware manufacturing sector faces lack of a level playing field vis-a-vis competing nations. According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the sector suffers disability of around 8.5 per cent to 11 per cent on account of lack of adequate infrastructure, domestic supply chain and logistics; high cost of finance; inadequate availability of quality power; limited design capabilities and focus on R&D by the industry; and inadequacies in skill development.