In a move aimed at manufacturing components here, Sony India will soon start ‘open cell manufacturing’ of televisions which will begin from the panel component stage itself. It will save 5-10% costs for the company owing to lower duties which somewhat would help offset pressure from the steep fall of the rupee, managing director Sunil Nayyar said.The ‘open cell’ assembly line will come up in the Foxconn plant near Chennai where Sony has been assembling televisions since 2015. Open cell production is the import of television panels in an open-cell state, which would require further assembling before being ready to be used in the final television assembling process.India has no TV panel fabrication facility and hence the television manufacturers are now trying to adopt the ‘open cell route’ to save on taxes.While the taxation on finished LED TV panels imported for local assembling is 15%, the import duty is 5% on open cell TV panels. The duty on import of completely built television sets is 20%.Nayyar said Sony stands by the philosophy of the government to make in India. “The larger portion of our TV sales is produced in India. The advantage from open cell manufacturing will be difficult to pass on to consumers due to variables including the depreciation of rupee,” he said.TV makers like LG and Panasonic are also starting to assemble some models in the open cell format, while others are evaluating the process. Sony, however, declined to comment which TV sizes will be manufactured via this process.