COVID-19: 50 lakh mobiles need repair to support work from home
Amid the deadly pandemic and current ongoing lockdown, most of the companies have allotted their employees work from home tasks. Mobile phone players estimate that over 50 lakh mobile devices, including laptops may require repairing during the lockdown period to support work from home. About 97 percent of the broadband connections in the country operate through mobile devices, as per data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
"There are around 80 crore mobile devices operational in the country out of which around 50 lakh need repair every month. Many players are providing online support but in most of the cases, customers need to visit repair centres."
When contacted, India Cellular and Electronics Association said it has written to the government requesting to bring mobile devices under the essential category during the lockdown.
"Depriving citizens repairs and purchase of extremely badly needed feature phones for poor people is not appropriate. Citizens particularly farmers also want to upgrade to entry level smartphones to keep their enterprises going,” as per ICEA.
"Education of children also requires at least an entry level smartphone. All of this must be enabled," ICEA Chairman Pankaj Maohindroo said.
ICEA has sought government permission to only allow opening of "company-owned" or "company-authorised" service centres as it will automatically bring down the number of service centres to a small fraction of the total outlets that sell or service mobile devices.
The industry has also requested the government to allow online sale of mobile phones during the lockdown.
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