India, Aug. 22 -- India has demonstrated that it can manufacture mobile phones at scale. The harder task begins now: increasing the share of value inside those phones that is created, designed, and owned in India.

That is the significance of the Rs 62,500 crore Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPMS) notified by the government on Friday. Unlike an incentive programme focused predominantly on expanding production, MPMS links support to manufacturing, domestic sourcing, Indian brands, and local design and research and development (R&D).

The five-year scheme, running from FY 2026-27 to FY 2030-31, follows the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing (PLI-LSEM), which helped India expand handset producti...