From a ₹1,500 crore export footnote to a ₹2.59 lakh crore global headline — India's mobile manufacturing story has rewritten itself in a decade, and Union Coal and Mines Minister G. Kishan Reddy says the women on the factory floor deserve much of the credit. On Monday, 3 August 2026, Reddy took to X to frame the Union Cabinet's freshly approved mobile phone manufacturing scheme — worth ₹62,500 crore over 2026–27 to 2030–31 — as not just an industrial milestone, but a story of female economic power reshaping modern India.

A ₹62,500 Crore Bet on India's Electronics Future

The Cabinet's approval extends the momentum built by the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, first launched in 2020 under the Atmanirbhar Bharat push, which offered financial incentives to manufacturers to set up or expand domestic production and slash import dependence. The results Reddy cited are striking: domestic mobile phone production has now crossed ₹6.27 lakh crore, while exports have surged from roughly ₹1,500 crore in 2014–15 to approximately ₹2.59 lakh crore in 2025–26. The new scheme, running through 2030–31, is designed to push India from assembly-line participant to higher-value global electronics hub.

NariShakti: The Workforce Behind the Numbers

Reddy's post places women workers at the centre of this industrial transformation. He pointed to a cluster of government programmes enabling female participation at scale: the Employment Linked Incentive (ELI) scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) — the flagship skill-development programme launched in 2015 — alongside Sakhi Nivas hostels, crèche facilities, safer workplace mandates, and progressive labour reforms. Together, Reddy argued, these initiatives are drawing women into electronics manufacturing 'in unprecedented numbers' (अभूतपूर्व संख्या में).

From Factory Floor to Global Market

The minister's framing connects two distinct policy tracks — industrial incentives and social infrastructure — into a single arc. The argument: you cannot fill a factory with female workers unless you also solve for childcare, safe accommodation, and skills. India's electronics sector, dominated by large assembly plants in states like Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, has already seen a significant feminisation of its workforce under the PLI era. The new scheme's implementation guidelines, beneficiary companies, and formal employment targets are expected to be detailed as the 2026–27 cycle begins.

India is no longer just assembling the world's phones. It is building the workforce — and the policy architecture — to manufacture them on its own terms.