NEW DELHI: Handset makers and contract manufacturers are set to fast track their investments into Make in India , after the government imposed a 10% basic customs duty ( BCD ) on smartphones , ensuring continuation of incentives for local manufacturing that would boost investment into developing component manufacturing ecosystem in the country.The duty also comes as a relief for several local companies and foreign firms including Foxconn, Flex, Salcomp and iPhone-maker Wistron and even Samsung that have pumped in millions into setting up more than 70 phone and component manufacturing units over the past couple of years.Additional investments worth Rs.1,000 crore have been hanging in the balance, which will now be taken forward. “The investments in the industry were on hold for the past 6-8 months due to huge uncertainty, but now the momentum in the industry which was lost should come back and more and more people will invest in backward integration or components,” said Sunil Vachani, executive chairman of Dixon Technologies, which makes phones for Intex, Panasonic and Gionee.Samsung has already announced its intentions to make India a manufacturing and export hub , with shipments to Europe, Middle East, Africa and elsewhere expected to kick off in 2020. Apple, through Wistron, has also begun to assemble some of its iPhone SE models in the country, with plans to expand it further, which could get a further legup with the BCD, said experts.“This is a big boost for local manufacturing, else it would have been impossible to manufacture in India,” said Rajeev Jain, chief financial officer at Intex Technologies, which would now look at investing Rs.100 crore this fiscal to expand its Greater Noida plant. Before GST, the duty structure made imported phones costlier than locally made ones by 11.5%, but that duty difference was evened out after GST rate of 12% was set for all phones.The move has been lauded by Indian as well as foreign handset makers such as Lava, Micromax, Gionee and HMD Global which makes Nokia phones. "It's a step to ensure that CBU import becomes non-competitive," Gionee India MD Arvind Vohra said. "BCD also ensures that the Indian consumer is not taken for a ride by global companies which have in the past used India for dumping old and slow selling inventory and made their way back to their countries once the inventory got over," said Rajesh Agarwal, cofounder of Micromax.The decision to impose BCD would also clear any roadblocks in the way of Phased Manufacturing Program (PMP), which lays down a roadmap that offers tax benefits to those making mobile phone components within the country. PMP would also increase local value addition to 35-40% from the current 6%.It would also lend a helping hand to India becoming an export hub for existing players such as Samsung, and for ecosystem players from China, Taiwan and other markets to come and invest in India.For investors such as the world’s largest mobile phone charger maker Salcomp, the long term assurance is good news. “The differential duty has come in the form of BCD, which is what we were expecting as we were sure the government would protect (investments like ours),” said the Finnish company’s MD Sasikumar Gendham. The company is adding capacity of 50 million chargers a year to take its total capacity to 200 million in Chennai, with an investment of Rs. 74 crore.“Now, the government is coming up with a long-term policy, so one can commit funds for expansion,” Intex’s Jain said. Noida-based contract manufacturer Dixon is pushing ahead its plan to set up a line to populate printed circuit board (PCB) with a capacity of 1 million units a month at its plant, at an initial investment of Rs 30 crore by September.