Saturday, February 01, 2014: Indian government is getting increasingly serious about the development of electronics eco-system in the country. After approving the establishment of two semiconductor fabrication units in the country, the government is now coming up with the idea of setting up four hubs to incubate electronics startups. These hubs will be created across the country and will help startups that specialise in electronics.
Indian government is working to grow the Electronic System Design and Manufacture (ESDM) sector in the country, by facilitating local manufacturing and putting a restraint on the imports of electronics goods. Taking a step in this direction, the country announced the Electronics Policy 2012 along with a $2 billion Electronic Development Fund. The fund, however, is yet to be set up.
A Working Group has been set up to implement a strategy of electronics policy, that work son deliberating on how to develop intellectual property in the ESDM sector. As per a recommendation of the group, the incubators helping the electronics stratups will work as centralised facilities and will provide specialised tools and facilities for startups to set up shop and develop chips and products in the ESDM segment. The government has decided setting up of four innovation centres, to be located in premier educational institutes in the country. The first centre in the series is proposed to be set up in the Delhi University.
It will be called “Electropreneur Park” and will be run by the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), a society under the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) with support from the Delhi University, the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), and other industry and academic institutions. The centre will aim to incubate about 50 startups in five years.
It is worth mentioning here that the recently releases IESA –Frost & Sullivan Report has identified 25 high priority electronic product categories that account for 82 per cent of overall electronics consumption in India. As per the National Policy of Electronics, India has a $100 billion investment target to meet by 2020.
