India Releases Guidelines for Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme

eetimes.com, May. 01, 2025 – 

India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has officially launched the portal and guidelines for the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS), which offers a mix of capex-linked, turnover-linked and hybrid incentives, with a portion tied to employment creation. It has a ₹229.19 billion (approximately $ 2.75 billion) outlay over six years.

At the launch event, the Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, stated that the country’s electronics production had grown five times and exports more than six times in the last few years. He added that the scheme was not just about incentives but about building design capability, achieving Six Sigma quality and becoming globally competitive.

The launch event, attended by over 200 stakeholders including global industry leaders and embassy officials, also saw Sarvam AI selected to build India’s first indigenous AI foundational model, underlining the country’s growing tech ambitions.

India’s electronics manufacturing journey started with assembling finished goods and has seen massive success in terms of mobile phone exports. This was supported by a combination of a 20% import duty and a structured production-linked incentive scheme. The same success, however, has not been replicated in IT hardware. Many experts attribute this to the absence of any import duty.

The second leg of the journey focuses on components that are brought to light by the ECMS. The target segment products are varied—non-surface mount technology components, electromechanical components, lithium-ion battery components, bare PCBs, multi-layer PCBs, high-density interconnect (HDI) PCBs and capital equipment. EE Times got some inputs from industry leaders during a live webinar organized by Indian industry body Confederation of Indian MSME in ESDM and IT to unpack this scheme and its impact.

Understanding ECMS

The ECMS offers three types of incentives—turnover-linked, capex-linked and a hybrid of both—based on the nature of the product and the segment being targeted. These incentives are spread over six years, with a one-year setup or gestation period.

“Categories A, B and C offer turnover-linked incentives. Category C also includes hybrid incentives for select products. Category D is for capital equipment and gets only capex support,” explained industry expert Sanjeev Keskar, CEO of Arvind Consultancy. For the first time ever, capital goods manufacturers are a part of the incentive framework.

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