“The state government would offer an interest subvention of five per cent to the projects financed by public sector banks”
Home grown handset maker, Lava has evinced interest to set up a mobile phone manufacturing unit in Odisha.
Lava has a complete in-house product testing facility in China and a research and development (R&D) setup in India, says Lava International Ltd website.
“The talks are at a preliminary stage with the company for establishment of a mobile phone manufacturing unit and other products. The company officials recently held discussions with us via video conferencing”, said a top official in the IT department.
The company officials are expected to visit the state soon, he said, adding that the state government has assured 24×7 high quality power supply and other infrastructure support for setting up of the unit.
Sources said, the company is also considering two-three locations in other states.
LAVA sells wide product portfolio that encompasses tablets, feature phones and smart phones having various models in bar and touch form factor at multiple price points to suit all categories of consumers. Lava’s gamut of brands includes IRIS series of Android based smartphones, Discover series of internet experience touch phones, Spark series of premium bar phones and ARC & KKT series of feature-rich budget phones.
If finalised, the project is likely to come up at the electronic manufacturing cluster (EMC) being set up at Infovalley complex on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.
The department of electronics and information technology (DeitY), under the Union ministry of Communication and Information Technology, last year had awarded in principle approval for the EMC which will be set up on 215 acres land. The final approval for the EMC is awaited. To promote investments in the emerging ESDM (electronics system design and manufacturing) space, the state cabinet has recently approved a Special Package Incentive Scheme.
The new scheme offers capital investment subsidy, entry tax waiver, human capital investment subsidy, sales tax and VAT rebate, power incentives, interest subsidy over and above the sop promised in the state ICT Policy-2014. Investors intending to invest more than Rs 200 crore and offering employment to more than 500 persons at the time of commissioning and creating jobs for more than 2000 persons in a span of five years would be entitled to 25 per cent investment subsidy on capital investment subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore.
Among other sops, the state government would offer an interest subvention of five per cent to the projects financed by public sector banks. The state government has also renamed IT department as the department of electronics and IT to diversify areas of focus including the ESDM sector.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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