As per reports, minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that all smartphones will have to support for Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) by the end of 2025. This is after Apple successfully supported the indigenous navigation system in some of the new iPhone 15 models.
5G smartphones would have to support NavIC by 1 January 2025, and other phones by December 2025, the minister said. NavIC was developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).
The minister further said, “In line with the incentives that we have announced under the IT hardware PLI (production-linked incentive), where cashback to companies can significantly go up if they use India-designed or -manufactured chips in their systems, we will extend the same idea to the smartphone PLI as well for using domestic chips that support NavIC,” and added, “We want to create an incentive structure that will encourage companies under the PLI schemes to use NavIC-supporting chips designed or made in India.”
Report further revealed that under the IT hardware PLI scheme, companies manufacturing laptops, computers and servers and source locally made components, including chips, will get additional incentives.
“When we have a mobile phone grid chip, which is performance-competitive, cost-competitive, we will certainly incentivize mobile phone devices to incorporate that as well.” He added that the government has already made it mandatory in the automobile segment to use GPS that uses the NavIC chipsets.
Most smartphones allow use of all navigation systems for developers; also with NavIC getting adopted by Apple, among other systems, the doors for the Indian system’s global development will also open up.
“Chandrayaan 3, ISRO’s successful launch of the Aditya L1, its maiden solar mission, and the mainstream acceptance of the NavIC technology shows India’s growing power as a space nation,” Chandrasekhar said.