The government has set up a fast track task force to give a boost to mobile manufacturing in the country. The aim of the taskforce will be to develop a manufacturing ecosystem in the country to achieve the production target of 500 million units of mobile handsets by 2019.

The taskforce includes representatives from the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY), the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), numerous handset vendors and other industry stakeholders. Pankaj Mohindroo, President, ICA has been appointed as the chairman of the taskforce while Nokia SEZ’s president and director of Indian operations Josh Foulger and Lava Co-founder Hari OM Rai have been made the co-chairman. The board of members include BD Park, managing director (MD), Samsung India; Kenichiro Hibi, Sony India; Sandeep Bhargava, Microsoft Devices, director for government relations; Soon H Kwon, MD, LG India and Vikas Jain, co-founder, Micromax.

The government will be represented by S K Marwah and Asha Nangia, directors, DeitY in the taskforce.

Earlier, ICA in its budget recommendations had suggested that the mobile phone exports from India might drop to zero in 2015 in the absence of any corrective measures to boost domestic manufacturing. It added that though the mobile market in the country has grown and is expected to reach $12 billion in 2014, imports have accounted for three-quarters of the market with a falling share of locally manufactured products.