White goods PLI reopens: More time for companies to crack open AC & LED production

New Delhi: The government reopened the window to apply for the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for white goods like air conditioners and LED lights for 90 days. This follows an assessment of the industry's appetite to make additional investments under the scheme for capitalising on a growing market and increasing local manufacturing of key components for ACs and LED lights.

Leading manufacturers such as Tata-owned Voltas, Daikin, Blue Star and Dixon Technologies are evaluating whether to submit fresh applications, company executives said. All these firms are beneficiaries of the first phase of the scheme.

ET was the first to report about the government's plan to reopen the scheme in its edition dated June 21.


Blue Star will take a decision in 15 days, said a top company executive. "You must be achieving certain revenue in order to earn PLI. So, we are working out whether we will be able to generate the required revenue, and what our backward integration status is. We have already confirmed to the government that we are evaluating," B. Thiagarajan, managing director of Blue Star, told ET.

Jasbir Singh, chief executive of Amber Group, said, "We are waiting for the guidelines. Post that, we will plan."

The PLI for White Goods (PLIWG) has an outlay of ₹6,238 crore and would be implemented over seven years through FY29. PLI claims will now be processed on a quarterly basis instead of annually.

The application window will remain open from July 15 till October 12. Both new applicants and existing beneficiaries of PLIWG, who would want to invest more by switching to a higher target segment or their group companies applying under different target segments, would be eligible to apply.

The scheme will only be eligible for the remaining tenure to applicants. New applicants and existing beneficiaries opting for an investment period till March 2023 and seeking to move to a higher investment category, if approved in the third round, would be eligible for PLI for a maximum of three years only.

Existing beneficiaries opting for an investment period up to March 2022 and seeking to move to a higher investment category in the third round would only be eligible for a PLI of a maximum of two years, if approved. If the above-existing beneficiaries are unable to achieve the threshold investment or sales in the given year, they will be eligible to submit claims as per their original investment plans. But this flexibility will only be allowed once in the entire scheme tenure. Till now, 66 applicants with a committed investment of Rs 6,962 crore have been selected for the PLI scheme.

The PLIWG scheme expects value addition to increase from 15-20% in FY22 to as much as 75-80% by FY29.