India’s 1st lithium-ion cell factory inaugurated in Andhra Pradesh

The Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar has launched the pre-production run of India’s first lithium-ion cell manufacturing facility at Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. This state-of-the-art facility has been set up by Chennai-based Munoth Industries Limited with an outlay of Rs 165 crores.

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Key points:

• The facility is located in one of the two Electronics Manufacturing Clusters set up in the temple town, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015.
• The installed capacity of the plant at present is 270 MWH and can produce 20,000 cells of 10Ah capacity daily. These cells are used in power banks and this capacity is around 60 per cent of India’s present requirement.
• Cells for other consumer electronics like mobile phones, hearable and wearable devices will also be produced.
• Currently, India imports complete requirements of lithium-ion cells primarily from China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.

Notably:

The report mentioned that at present, battery cells and lithium-ion batteries attract 18 per cent GST, unlike EVs as a whole which attracts only 5 per cent GST. After a draft proposal was sent by NITI Aayog, the Union government is considering lowering the GST slab on EV batteries to 5 per cent and is likely to implement the move very soon. This means that even the vast majority of the existing EV makers will be able to sell their EVs at a considerably lower cost.

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