Name solely required Chinese language specialists: Govt to cell producers

As mobile manufacturing firms face shortage of Chinese engineers and technicians for setting up new units to qualify for production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, due to delay in visa processing, the government has advised them to call only the set of people who are absolutely required to build assembly lines in the new handset manufacturing units. Over the past three-four months, there has been a surge in demand for Indian visas among Chinese technicians, who need to come here for establishing mobile manufacturing units. But, due to the tensions between the two nations, there has been a delay in the granting of visas.

Several companies have written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) to help them secure visas for Chinese engineers as their expertise is necessary in this regard.

Government officials said it had been noticed that not only engineers and people in quality teams, required to set up new units, but Chinese professionals from sales, marketing, administration and finance departments were also applying for Indian visas, which was leading to a backlog.

“We have received several letters from firms seeking help in granting of visas for Chinese experts and we have forwarded numerous names given by these firms to the Ministry of External Affairs, after which visas have been given to the people. But the firms have also been told to call only the required set of people in India as it will keep the visa processing time short,” said a source in the government.

The expertise of Chinese engineers and technicians is necessary to set up manufacturing units as most of them are shifting from China. There has been a surge in visa applications over the last three-four months because no work was undertaken for a few months during the lockdown last year. The companies are now racing against time to meet the production targets under the PLI scheme, rolled out last year.

Stuck supplies of components, travel restrictions due to suspension of international flights have anyway delayed production by the new units because of which the industry has urged the government to roll over their first-year production targets to second- and third-year. This, the industry has sought for only those manufacturers who have met their investment targets for the first fiscal year. The request is currently under the consideration of the government.