Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications & IT received the first major investment proposal under the new Electronics Policy. M/s Bosch Automotive Electronics India (P) Ltd., submitted their M-SIPS application for an investment of Rs 5500 million in a manufacturing facility in Bengaluru. This first application has been received within days of the final guidelines being issued by the Department for receiving M-SIPS applications.
Welcoming the investment, the Minister said that many others are expected to take advantage of the policy and make their investments.
A Round Table was also held on January 21, 2013 in New Delhi to discuss the new National Policy on Electronics under the chairmanship of Kapil Sibal. The Round Table focused on implementation of policy in avionics, automotive electronics, medical electronics, LED sectors. Over 50 top industry leaders participated in the Round Table.
J Satyanarayana, Secretary, Department of Electronics and IT, Pradeep Rawat, Director General, India-Taipei Association, Ajay Choudhary, Founder HCL and Dr. Jagdish Prasad, DG Health Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare also participated.
Speaking on the occasion, Sibal said, “The common perception about electronics is sometimes that it relates to IT, telecom and consumer electronics. But electronics is a meta resource which pervades practically all sectors of economy. Therefore, the new policy framework has been specifically formulated to cover sectors like avionics, automotive electronics, medical
electronics, LEDs.”
Exhorting the automobile manufacturers to use domestically develop greater capabilities in automotive electronics, he said that Electronics can drive fuel efficiency and reduce accident hazards and need to meet the price points of economy cars in the Indian perspective. Automotive electronics manufacturers can customize their control units to suit these requirements and the
percentage of automotive electronics would increase significantly. He also highlighted the opportunities in the Avionics sector. The demands of both passenger aircraft and defense and homeland security are huge. Based on India’s fleet of aircraft, India could He specifically emphasized on the area of Medical electronic devices as an area of huge potential.
India needs to develop devices which would meet the needs of 1.25 billion people. Currently a very small fraction of the population is able to take advantage of the medical technology. We need devices which suit Indian diseases, Indian operating conditions of temperature, humidity, dust etc. Government is already in the process of bringing out amendments in the legal framework to create standards for medical devices. This will help new devices to arrive in the market much faster. Shri Satyanarayana said that the Department of Electronics and IT will be supporting the development of new medical electronic devices in a public private partnership model.
The Minister also released the catch line for the ESDM sector. The tag line is “Electronics India- Billion Needs, Million Chips”. Releasing the catchline, the Minister said, “The catch line reflects the huge size of the Indian market and its innovative capabilities.
These are the USPs on which we are marketing India as the new destination for investments in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing.”
