Will be working with IESA and DITE to further Digital India’s ninth pillar

Nasscom to capitalise on electronics sector

Nasscom’s engineering research and development council will be focusing on electronics manufacture and is working with the Indian Electronic and Semi-conductor Association (IESA), Bengaluru, and the Department of Information Technology and Electronics (DITE) to further one of the nine pillars of the Digital India programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The government expects to bring imports of electronics to zero by 2020. Presently, electronic imports are worth `45 billon (2009) and expected to go upto $400 billion by 2020.

We have selected to focus on electronics said B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, the new Nasscom president and founder and CEO Cyient Ltd, as Nasscom has the requisite engineering skills and its member companies are acknowledged for their embedded and application software and innovation, as being the best in the world.

He said they would coordinate with IESA and DITE to build different products, startups and incubation centres.

Electronic hardware, which India would have to concentrate on, would be needed since Digital India envisages a broadband highway for connecting 22.5 lakh gram panchayats and 2.5 lakh villages through mobile.

However, for manufac- turing in India and Make in India to succeed, he said there needs to be a proper infrastructure and manufacturing eco-system. The latter also includes testing facilities for the quality of the products as there are a lack of good enough labs for this.

The DRDO has the best equipment but it is not available to the private sector, he said.

More importantly the poor infrastructure results in a 6-8 per cent cost disadvantage for Indian manufacturers, in addition to the inverted duty structure on imports and high interest rates.

India’s small and medium enterprises pay interest of 14-16 per cent against one per cent enjoyed by their German counterparts.