Arun Jaitley may ring in life to Nokia staff
Finance minister is likely to announce concrete plan to revive Nokia plant
New Delhi/Chennai: Finance minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget recitation in Parliament on Saturday could light up 30,000 smiles, at least, at distant Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. He is most likely to announce concrete measures to revive the Nokia plant that has been closed since November 1 last year following a tax dispute. A clear roadmap for resuming production is expected in two or three weeks, an official source said.
The closure of Nokia had made global headlines and ended up as a major embarrassment to the Indian efforts to attract foreign investors. Worse still, Chinese handsets flooded the Indian market taking advantage of the Nokia closure. In short, the Nokia story challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet projects, ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’.
Taking a firm view of the delay in reviving Nokia, despite a decision to that effect being taken sometime back at the highest level, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) reportedly wrote to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), telling them firmly to stop their petty games and expedite the revival that would also significantly repair the investor confidence. It was said that while the DIPP was trying to claim credit for the Nokia revival by bringing it under its ‘Make in India’ programme, DeitY wanted to label it as a ‘Digital India’ project.