India can now point to phone production lines with justified pride. It should also stop pretending that every assembled handset represents the same industrial achievement. Screwing together imported high-value parts, testing the finished device and placing it in a box creates jobs and capability. It is better than importing the entire phone. But it captures only part of the value chain, leaves supply vulnerable and does not automatically produce Indian technology companies. The government’s Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme is therefore aimed at the correct problem. The official ECMS portal lists display and camera sub-assemblies, printed circuit boards, passive parts, enclosures, lithium-ion cells and manufacturing equipment among the targets. That list is an admission worth welcoming: assembly was a beginning, not the destination.
I am sympathetic to the government’s incremental approach. Industrial ecosystems are not summoned by a slogan. China’s dominance emerged from infrastructure, suppliers, skills, scale, patient capital and ruthless execution over decades. India had to enter where it could—large-scale assembly supported by incentives and a vast domestic market. Critics who dismiss this as screwdriver work ignore learning effects and employment. Cheerleaders who rename every screwdriver turn “deep manufacturing” are equally unhelpful. Honest policy needs a ladder and a clear account of which rung we occupy.
Components decide who captures value
A phone’s commercial identity may belong to the brand printed on its back, but much of its value comes from the display, processor, memory, camera modules, radio components and software. India will not fabricate every element economically, nor should self-sufficiency become autarkic theatre. Global electronics depends on specialised trade. The objective is resilience and competitive participation: making enough important parts, equipment and intellectual property that India is not merely the final station before sale.
The scheme’s operational guidelines matter because they move beyond a single incentive model. Different component categories have different capital needs, margins and gestation periods. Turnover-linked support may suit one segment; capital support or a hybrid may suit another. Employment-linked conditions are sensible if designed carefully. A factory that imports automation, employs few people and relies on imported inputs may still offer strategic value, but policy should not describe it as a mass-employment triumph.
The hardest part will be supplier economics after incentives. Components must meet brutal standards on yield, consistency, traceability and delivery. A brand will not tolerate unreliable parts because a minister wants localisation. Indian suppliers need scale across customers and sometimes across industries. Printed circuit boards, connectors, cells and optical components can serve automotive, telecom, medical and industrial markets as well as phones. Policy should encourage such cross-sector scale rather than constructing factories dependent on one brand’s procurement cycle.
Why Chinese brands still matter
Chinese smartphone brands remain powerful in India because they understand price bands, distribution, features and rapid product cycles. Consumers do not buy a geopolitical lecture; they buy the screen, camera, battery and service network they can afford. Some Indian commentary treats this as a patriotic failure by shoppers. I think that is lazy. If a domestic brand offers worse value, asking the customer to subsidise it through sentiment is not industrial policy.
Chinese firms also arrived with established supplier relationships and manufacturing knowledge. Even when production occurs in India, important decisions, designs and components may originate elsewhere. The policy challenge is to make India indispensable inside those firms’ global networks while helping domestic companies build capabilities of their own. Forcing superficial localisation can produce paperwork rather than expertise. Stable incentives, customs policy and standards are more valuable than sudden restrictions that make long-term planning impossible.
Indian brands face another problem: many have relied on imported reference designs and contract production without investing enough in software support, imaging, patents or after-sales service. Branding an imported design is not morally inferior to assembling one, but it does not create defensible advantage. Government procurement and incentives can help with scale, yet companies must spend on engineering and support. The customer who receives no security update will not care how patriotic the launch presentation was.
Policy must reward learning, not just output
Production-linked incentives naturally favour measurable output. Units shipped and investment announced are easier to verify than knowledge absorbed. But industrial policy succeeds when firms become more capable after support ends. The government should track local engineering teams, supplier qualification, process yields, patents where relevant, apprentices trained and exports to demanding markets. Not every metric should determine payment, but all should inform evaluation.
Skills require special attention. Electronics manufacturing needs operators, maintenance technicians, quality engineers, toolmakers, chemical specialists and managers who can run high-yield processes. A factory announcement can precede the workforce it needs. Industry partnerships with ITIs and engineering colleges must be tied to actual equipment and curricula, not ceremonial memoranda. Workers also need safe conditions, transport and career progression. India will not retain manufacturing talent if the employment model treats labour as infinitely replaceable.
Infrastructure is more than land and electricity. Suppliers need predictable logistics, clean power, water, testing facilities, customs clearance and nearby tool repair. Clusters matter because a failed machine cannot wait weeks for an overseas technician. State competition can accelerate development, but duplicated facilities and arbitrary concessions waste resources. The Union government should publish comparable cluster performance so states compete on delivery rather than announcement size.
The semiconductor temptation
Semiconductor projects dominate headlines because fabs symbolise technological sovereignty. They are important, but they can swallow attention and capital. India needs design, packaging, testing, compound semiconductors and equipment capabilities alongside any leading fabrication ambitions. It also needs the less glamorous components listed under ECMS. A phone cannot ship without connectors and circuit boards merely because the country announced a fab.
I worry when every electronics discussion becomes a race to declare the first domestic chip. “First” is publicity; repeatable yield is industry. Chips must meet specifications at competitive cost, and customers must qualify them. Government support is defensible because entry barriers are extraordinary and strategic risks real. In return, the public deserves transparent milestones, realistic timelines and clarity about how much technology is domestically controlled.
The same discipline applies to component incentives. Projected production is not production. Proposed jobs are not payroll. Approved applications are not functioning suppliers. Ministries should publish periodic data on disbursement, commercial output and target achievement, including projects that stall. Transparency is not hostility to Make in India. It protects a worthy strategy from becoming a collage of press releases.
What success would look like
In five years, I would like to see Indian plants supplying meaningful components to products sold outside India, not merely fulfilling localisation requirements for the domestic market. I want multiple buyers for each serious supplier, rising domestic engineering responsibility and companies able to survive a change in incentive rates. I want repair networks with access to parts, because manufacturing depth should also improve product serviceability rather than feed only exports.
I also want consumers to benefit. Local production should eventually reduce logistics risk and improve availability, although taxes, branding and channel margins mean prices will not fall automatically. Policymakers must avoid promising that every factory translates immediately into a cheaper phone. The stronger promise is economic capability: jobs, exports, supplier businesses, resilience and technical learning.
There is room for criticism from the left and market purists. One side worries public money will enrich corporations; the other says government cannot pick winners. Both risks exist. Incentives can be captured, and bureaucrats can misjudge technology. But doing nothing is also a choice—one that leaves India dependent on ecosystems built with extensive state support elsewhere. The answer is conditional, transparent assistance with expiry dates, competition and published evaluation.
Make in India’s phone-assembly phase has delivered real gains. I will not erase them to sound sophisticated. Nor will I call the project complete because export boxes carry Indian addresses. ECMS tackles the layer where value, resilience and know-how become harder to fake. If it produces globally useful suppliers, the scheme will deserve celebration. If it produces subsidised islands importing most inputs until support ends, shipment totals will not rescue the verdict. Components are the exam because they reveal whether India is learning to manufacture—or merely becoming exceptionally efficient at final assembly.
