NEW DELHI: The government on Monday extended the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturing with a focus on mobile phones by a year until 2025-26. Also, it provided an additional outlay of more than Rs 19,041 crore for its Bharat Net project.The fresh allocation for Bharat Net would “enable extension of broadband connectivity to all remaining villages”, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, while announcing new measures to help revive the Covidhit economy.As of date, over 1.5 lakh out of 2.5 lakh gram panchayats are already connected or are service-ready.On the mobile phone PLI front, the base year of the scheme continues to be 2019-20, but companies will have the option to choose the fiveyear period either from the base year, or the year 2020-21 for calculation of the incentives under the scheme.“Now we have extended the tenure of the scheme from 2020-21 to 2025-26. Earlier, it would have ended in 2024-25. For those who have made investments even in 2020-21, they will also get counted because we have given them the option of choosing any five years for meeting their production target under the scheme,” the finance minister said.Companies, especially local contract manufacturers, reacted positively. A Gururaj, MD of Optiemus Electronics, said extension of the tenure has been a key demand of the industry in view of delays due to the pandemic.The government clarified that investments made in 2020-21 will continue to be counted as eligible.