Wednesday, September 24, 2014: Union minister of Telecom and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said on Tuesday, that a goal has been set by the government to improve domestic manufacturing of electronic products. This goal needs to achieved so that the electronics import bill doesn’t surpass that of fuel import.
Prasad admitted that domestic manufacturing is definitely more expensive than importing electronics goods. But improving the manufacturing rate is very important to curb the import bills. Presently India imports electronic goods for more than $100 billion per year, which if continued, may cross $400 billion by 2020. Prasad shared his views while speaking at the 10th National Summit on “E-governance & Digital India: Minimum Government, Maximum Governance”. The summit was organised by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).
He also shared his plans of laying the foundation for the first electronics cluster in the first week of October, at Madhya Pradesh. He also added that an in-principle approval has already been given by the government to set up electronics clusters in states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra. Other states are also in the consideration list. The minister recently paid a visit to Germany where he pitched about India’s potential in the field of electronics manufacturing as well as non-conventional energy.
He also said at the summit that German electronic manufacturers showed keen interest in the Indian market too. Prasad is also very hopeful about the future of e-commerce sector in India. He said that with the growth of Flipkart and Alibaba, India is showing a vast opportunity in e-commerce. If National Optical Fibre Network programme is rolled out at its scheduled time, then more Alibabas will emerge in this country. This programme aims to connect around 0.25 million gram panchayats through broadband connectivity by 2017.
