The fast tracking of visa restrictions for Chinese technicians for companies under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme has resulted in a reducing the backlog of applications, a senior official said.
“Now that pendency has come down. Lot of improvement is there. There is a relief in this for those companies. The ministry of home affairs has taken action pro-actively. In the last two months, things have improved a lot,” the official who did not wish to be named said.
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After the border clashes in 2020 the Indian government had put Chinese investments under intense scrutiny and this was seen even in the grant of business and other visas. As PLI unfolded the companies which sourced machinery from China needed technicians to install them and train their workforce started feeling the impact of delays. The visa delay was flagged as one of the reasons that the pace of investment by companies selected under the scheme slowed down. To address this a special mechanism was created to expedite those visas. A portal was also set up to streamline the process.
The PLI scheme which was first announced in 2020 was gradually expanded to 14 sectors and an outlay of Rs 1.97 trillion was made for the incentives for incremental production by companies in these 14 sectors. The sectors covered by the scheme include telecom equipment, white goods, textiles, medical devices, automobiles, speciality steel, food products, high-efficiency solar PV modules, advanced chemistry cell battery, drones, and pharma.
The official said though the disbursements of incentives is slow, companies that have been selected for the scheme have invested around Rs 1.5 trillion on plant and machinery alone.
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These investments has resulted in incremental production or sales of Rs 12.5 trillion and exports of Rs 4 trillion.
He said as more units start functioning and companies have their audited reports, the applications for incentives will go up. “Disbursement is low, but it will pick up, I am sure,” the official said.
For faster payout the government had changed the rules and allowed for quarterly filing of claims.
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