Decoding the PLI Scheme About a gross of companies have applied for a production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for IT hardware, including Dell, Rising Stars Hi-Tech (Foxconn) and Lava. Majority of the hardware manufacturing firms have applied under category IT hardware companies. According to the ministry of Information and Technology, these companies are expected to expand their manufacturing operations in a significant manner and grow into domestic leaders in IT Hardware production. The target IT hardware segments under the proposed scheme include laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers (PCs) and servers. The government of India will reward these entities by incentivising them. The Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman announced the PLI scheme for the companies in the annual budget on February 1, 2021 and the same was notified on March 3, 2021 for IT hardware. The scheme extends an incentive of 4 per cent to 2 per cent or 1 per cent on net incremental sales (over base year of FY 2019-20) of goods under target segments that are manufactured in India to eligible companies. The period under review for the scheme shall pertain to a period of four years, that is FY 2021-22 to FY 2024-25. The scheme proposes production linked incentives to boost domestic manufacturing and attract large investments in the value chain of these IT Hardware products. The aim is to ensure India as a manufacturing hub for IT and hardware solutions. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Electronics and IT said that the PLI scheme for IT Hardware has been a huge success in terms of the applications received from global as well as domestic companies engaged in manufacturing electronics hardware products. Over the next four years, the scheme is expected to lead to total production of about Rs 1.60 lakh crore, out of which production worth Rs 1.35 lakh crore is proposed by IT hardware entities, whereas domestic manufactures are likely to contribute about Rs 25,000  crore of production. It is anticipated that the scheme will rope in about Rs 2,500 crore of additional investment in electronics manufacturing and will generate over one lakh direct and indirect employment opportunities in next four years.