Samsung may lose PLI sops for first year on invoicing issues

New Delhi: Samsung Electronics may have to forgo its sops for the inaugural year of India’s ambitious production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for smartphone manufacturing due to what government officials said were ‘discrepancies in invoicing’. The Korean major said it is in “advanced” discussions with the government for redressal on the issue.

In August 2021, the electronics major had claimed a total of Rs 900 crore as incentives for achieving Rs 15,000 crore worth of additional sales in fiscal year 2021, over the year before. For claiming the sops, it had to produce handsets with a factory cost of more than $200 (around Rs 15,000). However, the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) found “some discrepancies in the company’s invoices” and had withheld the payout, officials said.