PLI IT Hardware 2.0

Imagine a government incentive scheme that tried once, got a lukewarm response, and instead of abandoning the idea, came back with a considerably more generous version specifically designed to fix whatever made the first attempt underwhelming. That's essentially the story of India's IT hardware PLI scheme, its second version, PLI 2.0, launched May 17, 2023 with a Rs 17,000 crore outlay, roughly doubled the incentive rate offered under the original scheme, from around 2% to an average of about 5%.

The scheme targets exactly the product categories the laptop import licensing policy covered elsewhere on this site also targets, laptops, tablets, all-in-one PCs, servers and ultra-small form factor devices, meaning the two policies work as a deliberate pair, the licensing system adds friction to pure imports while PLI 2.0 makes local manufacturing financially rewarding enough to actually justify the switch.

The response scaled up considerably, an earlier PLI 2.0 application round saw 27 IT hardware manufacturers approved in November 2023, and a later round drew applications from 40 firms proposing a combined Rs 4.65 lakh crore in investment, numbers reflecting genuine industry conviction that India's IT hardware manufacturing opportunity was worth committing serious capital to, not just chasing a modest one-time subsidy.

This scheme sits explicitly within a larger ambition, contributing toward an overall electronics manufacturing turnover target of roughly $300 billion by 2025-26, meaning PLI IT Hardware 2.0's success or failure is watched not just as a standalone laptop manufacturing story, but as one meaningful piece of whether India's broader electronics manufacturing ambitions, covered in related form under Semiconductors elsewhere on this site, are actually being realised.