"Wake up Jairam Ramesh, this is not a dystopian world as you put it": Scindia attacks Congress MP

New Delhi [India], July 9 : Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday slammed Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on his remarks on Production-linked Incentives (PLI) scheme in the Department of Telecommunications.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh today, attacked Telecom Minister, Scindia, where he said that he and the government have made "grandiose claims about India's phone manufacturing growth to justify the massive outlays in Production-linked Incentives (PLIs) given to firms in this sector."
In a post on X, Scindia replied to Ramesh and said that it seems Jairam Ramesh, the letter P in PLI Scheme stands for "Pessimist".
"After all, he comes from the school of thought where "arithmetic inevitability" is the sole factor that drives the fate of an economy. After 75 years, India is finally making a decisive push to become a leading telecom and electronics equipment manufacturing hub," he said.
"In 2014-15, only 5.8 crore mobile phone units were produced in the country, and over 21 crore units were imported. Today, the situation has completely reversed! In 2023-24, 33 crore units were produced in India, and only 0.3 crore units were imported. The value of mobile phone exports has gone up from Rs 1556 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 1,28,982 crore in 2023-24," Scindia pointed out.
The Telecom Minister further pointed out that the value of mobile phone imports was a whopping Rs 48,609 crore in 2014-15. The number today is just Rs 7,665 crore.
"Over the last five years, the trade deficit in telecom has reduced from Rs 68,000 crore to just Rs 4000 crore. The PLI scheme has significantly reduced the country's reliance on imported telecom equipment, resulting in import substitution of 60 per cent," he said.
"Wake up Jairam Ramesh, this is not a dystopian world as you put it," he added.
Jairam Ramesh on X alleged that India's export of telecom goods has been falling for the last three years.
"According to the Government's own data, India imported telecom products exceeding Rs 1,46,000 crore in the last fiscal year - seven times higher than the Rs 20,000 crore in exports. India's imported telecom goods worth Rs 1,22,000 crore in FY22, this rose to Rs 1,36,000 crore in FY23 to the current figure of approximately Rs 1,46,000 crore in FY24," he said.
"Production Linked Incentives (PLIs) have had a mixed track record at best, but the non-biological PM has had a stellar record in another type of PLIs - Propaganda, Lies, and Insults," he added.