Wipro, Rockwell, Lohum arms among 12 cos to enter electronics component manufacturing scheme

New Delhi: Robotic arms of Azim Premji’s Wipro Enterprises and US firm Rockwell Automation are among 12 companies that have received the government’s approval to manufacture and localize components and raw materials for electronics in India.

The ministry of electronics and IT (Meity) on Friday approved the new projects under the electronics component manufacturing scheme (ECMS) to locally make battery components, raw materials for printed circuit boards, and equipment to manufacture products in factories. The projects committed a total of ₹7,503 crore in investments spread over up to five years, and will largely become eligible for incentives as they start production.

Companies approved under the new tranche include Indo Asia Copper Ltd’s ₹3,546-crore copper foil manufacturing plant in Gujarat, which will supply raw material for lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing, as well as manufacturing of printed circuit boards. The Advanced Carbons Company (TACC) Ltd was also approved to set up a ₹2,438-crore facility to manufacture anode material for battery cells in Madhya Pradesh.

Energy recycling startup Lohum’s subsidiary Vidyuta Materials has also secured eligibility of incentives for a battery materials manufacturing plant in Uttar Pradesh, at an investment of ₹399 crore.

Others include Wipro Precision Automation and Robotics India (Pari)–a wholly owned subsidiary of Wipro Enterprises, and Rockwell Automation India–the local subsidiary of the US robotics group, which was cleared for incentives to localize the assembly and manufacturing of electronics manufacturing machines, at a combined investment of ₹211 crore.

ECMS investment targets

Friday’s approvals marked the sixth tranche under Meity’s flagship ₹40,000-crore ECMS initiative, which seeks to bring and establish a domestic electronics component supply chain. Notified in April 2025, the scheme followed India’s efforts to establish a domestic mobile phone assembly ecosystem through production-linked incentives (PLI).

The scheme “exceeded all the targets that ECMS was initially set”, said S. Krishnan, secretary at Meity, during the announcement.

“This is one of those rare schemes that have seen their budgets exceeded even before they came to an end, and has been tremendously successful. ECMS has so far approved 118 applications across 16 states for 34 products, with approved investment targets of ₹77,051 crore, and current electronics production targets of ₹5.73 trillion. Even in terms of employment, ECMS has generated 81,755 jobs, with some still to go.”

IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, however, urged companies to narrow down applications and have a clear path to action before seeking incentives.

“We have seen a clutch of incomplete applications, and I want to urge the secretary to outright reject these. We are only keen on incentivizing companies that are serious about India’s efforts to climb up the semiconductor value chain, and for that, we are only going to back applications that have a clear plan forward in terms of production and planning,” the minister added.

Sushil Pal, joint secretary at Meity, said the sixth tranche was the first in the scheme’s history to consider companies outside the electronics systems design and manufacturing (ESDM) ecosystem for incentives. Earlier, the scheme was reserved for companies within the electronics ecosystem.

So far, ECMS’s largest approvals were awarded to Tata Electronics, Motherson Group and Taiwanese global electronics giant Foxconn’s subsidiary Yuzhan, to locally manufacture mobile phone enclosures.

The scheme offers incentives of up to 8% of annual turnover for component manufacturing, and up to 25% of capital expenditure for manufacturing of equipment required in the sector.