The India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) has requested the government to include mobile devices under the essential services category, as many people are facing a tough time during the coronavirus lockdown due to non-availability of the devices.

ICEA include firms like Apple, Foxconn, Wistron, Flextronics, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Lava. They said mobile phones are at the heart of the digital ecosystem and their non-availability can be life-threatening.

The ICEA Chairman, Pankaj Mohindroo, in a letter to the IT Secretary, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, on Thursday said, “Senior citizens and those with underlying health conditions are most susceptible to COVID-19. In such cases, the fatality rate is upwards of 10 per cent. The disease is such that all times, the patients need to fend for themselves from the time they communicate with municipal authorities regarding symptoms to testing and treatment.”

The industry body in its letter highlighted that it is equally important as other essential services like telecom, internet, broadcast, IT services and others.

“Citizens who want to upgrade from feature phones to smartphones are being deprived of Aarogya Setu. We estimate that this runs into at least 10 million (1 crore) citizens already,” Mohindroo said.

ICEA said this can be a life-threatening situation and more than 10 crore senior citizens at the bottom of the pyramid do not have access to even feature phones and are being denied access.

The government has allowed operations of telecom, internet, broadcast and IT services but not mobile devices that are pivotal to accessing all these services.

On Sunday, the ICEA wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the request.

Mobile phone companies at present only have room for addressing export requirements, which account for around 12 per cent of total production.

In 2019-20, mobile phone players in India exported devices worth about Rs 25,000 crore and the total production is estimated to have crossed Rs 2 lakh crore now.

The mobile phone industry is estimated to have faced losses of around Rs 15,000 crore during the 21-day lockdown which started on March 24. The lockdown was later further extended to May 3 in wake of rising coronavirus cases.