Time to build electronic manufacturing brand: ISA

BANGALORE, INDIA: India has lived up to its tag of being the software industry leader, with Bangalore at its helm; however, it's high time to build its brand across the electronics product manufacturing industry as well, said Ajay Kumar IAS, Joint Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of India. He was addressing the ISA Summit 2011 here on Monday.

The demand of electronics hardware in India is set to grow from $45 Billion (Rs 2,25,000) in 2009 to $400 Billion (Rs 20,00,000 crores) by 2020.

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"Electronic system and design and manufacturing can propel the country towards global leadership. India has been the leaders in business process and outsourcing. Time has come to demonstrate our leadership position by building our own capabilities in IC design, IC fabrication and design & manufacturing of electronics products," said Kumar.

Over $2 billion worth chip designs are being exported from India developed by nearly 20,000 Indian professionals. Most of the semiconductor fabrication companies have set up their R&D and design centers in India.

India, therefore, is at the cutting edge of technology and this offers a great opportunity for the country to now focus on electronics hardware manufacturing, noted Kumar.

"With software as a strength, it is possible to create a market differentiation in electronic hardware product as well, as most hardware products have a large component of embedded and application software built into them,” adds Kumar.

The Department of Information Technology is in the process of formulating several major initiatives to build India as a major global producer of electronic products to meet both domestic and export demands.

One among them was the the Special Investment Package (SIPS-1), announced by the Union Government back in 2007 as part of the Semiconductor Policy to boost the semiconductor manufacturing sector.

As per the SIPS-I, which was open till March 2010, the minimum threshold amount for investments for a fab unit was around Rs 2,500 crore and Rs 12,000 crore for ecosystem unit.

Recently, a new committee constituted in January 2011 under the chairmanship of Ajay Kumar has recommended for a modified Special Investment Package scheme, and is under the consideration of the government.

The recommendation include setting up an electronic development fund to promote innovation, R&D, intellectual property and manufacturing in electronic sector, introducing new courses in electronic manufacturing so that adequate human resources are available for hardware manufacturing industry when large-scale electronics manufacturing effort take place.

He also noted that today with innovation and product cycle becoming smaller, a sustainable position cannot be achieved without the support of a dynamic R&D and innovation ecosystem. India needs to move ahead from the two driver technology and at the same time avoid complex solutions, which makes commercialization of products difficult.

The expert also called for a team effort, from academia, industry, and all facets of the Indian Government (and not just a couple of departments), in spiking the brand building efforts of India's product roadmap, which is suffering from 'confidence deficit' today.

And thus build an India, which is a global destination for electronics hardware manufacturing, not just for high end projects but also for whole value chain.