Date: 10/10/2011
India electronics and semiconductor industry: optimism in the air
With the Union Government announcing draft National Policy on Electronics, Indian electronics and semiconductor industry can still see there is a hope for India to become a manufacturing center for electronics. The draft policy sets out to achieve a turnover of about USD 400 Billion by 2020 involving investment of about USD 100 Billion. It also aims at ensuring employment to around 28 million in the sector by 2020, stated in the release.
Major strategies proposed in the draft policy include:
1. Providing attractive fiscal incentives across the value chain of the ESDM sector through Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (M-SIPS).
2. Setting up of Semiconductor Wafer Fab facilities and its eco-system for design and fabrication of chips and chip components.
3. Providing Preferential Market Access for domestically manufactured electronic products including mobile devices, SIM cards with enhanced features, etc. with special emphasis on Indian products for which IPR reside in India to address strategic and security concerns of the Government consistent with international obligations in procurement.
4. Providing incentives for setting up of over 200 Electronic Manufacturing Clusters with world class logistics and infrastructure.
5. Creating an "Electronic Development Fund" for promoting innovation, R&D and commercialization in ESDM, nano-electronics and IT sectors including providing support for seed capital, venture capital and growth stages of manufacturing.
6. To use innovation and R&D capabilities to develop electronic products catering to domestic needs and conditions at affordable price points.
7. Setting up Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) specific Incubation Centres across country.
8. Developing an India microprocessor for diverse applications/ strategic needs.
9. Creating a 10 year stable tax regime for the ESDM sector.
10. Setting up a specialized Institute for semiconductor chip design.
11. Encouraging greater participation of private sector in human resource development for the sector. Also encouraging setting up of skill-oriented courses for electronic designs along with hands-on laboratories enabling graduates from other disciplines to migrate to ESDM.
12. Developing and mandating standards for electronic products specific to Indian conditions of power, climate, handling etc.
13. Creating linkages for long term partnership between domestic ESDM industry and strategic sectors like Defence, Atomic Energy and Space.
14. Setting up of Centres of Excellence in the area of automotive electronics, Avionics, and Industrial electronics.
15. Adopting best practices in e-waste management
16. Setting up of a National Electronics Mission with industry participation to advance the implementation of various programmes in this policy.
17. The Department of Information Technology to be renamed as Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) to reflect the desired focus on electronics.
The draft Policy is available on the website of Department of Information Technology (www.mit.gov.in). Comments and feedback on the draft Policy are invited by Department of Information Technology.
In another announcement, Union Government has made available low cost tablet computer with 7 Inch LCD touch screen. The tablet-computer costing less than 50 US$ has much of the features of a desktop computer except for the screen size.
To learn more about Aakash Ubislate visit http://aakashtabletpc.in/