In a bid to give a quantum boost to the Indian electronics and software manufacturing industry, the government is planning a new policy for electronics and software production, as well as for data protection and setting up start-up clusters.
Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced this on Friday after a meeting here with industry leaders in order to launch work on the blueprint to realise a $1 trillion Indian IT economy in the next 5-7 years.
According to IANS, Prasad said that the government will be shortly laying down the new electronics policy because between the old policy and now, India has changed completely. Therefore, to boost electronics manufacturing, we will come up with new policy. There is need to look at inward software market. Therefore, government will come with a new software product policy and we are going to have framework for data security and protection policy.
The National Policy on Electronics was drawn up in 2012 and approved by the previous the UPA cabinet in 2013.
Noting that India ranks third in the world in terms of the number of start-ups, the Minister said the country needed to have start-up clusters for facilitations.
Besides, such an architecture for the future of Indian information technology (IT) would be incomplete without a dispute resolution mechanism as being demanded by the industry, Prasad said.
Earlier, Prasad outlined the government’s vision for building the Indian IT sector into a $1 trillion economy by 2022 that would become a global hub of low-cost digital technology.
Noting that it already is an industry with an estimated worth of $400-450 billion, he said Indian IT would not take long to became a $1 trillion industry.
Pointing out that 72 new mobile manufacturing units have opened in the last three years, the Minister said: “Mobile manufacturing itself will become a Rs 500 crore industry in the next few years.”
“The Indian IT industry has a clear potential to provide 10.5 million jobs, at a minimum,” he added.
