Budget increases incentives to make India a global hub for electronics

Government aims to take strategic crude oil reserve capacity to 15.33 MMT with two new facilities

Electronics manufacturing — IT manufacturing

Last Updated : Feb 01 2017 | 4:00 PM IST

The government is creating an ecosystem to make India a global hub for electronics manufacturing, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting the budget 2017-18 today. Over 250 investment proposals for electronics manufacturing have been received in the last 2 years, totalling to an investment of Rs.1.26 lakh crores.

A number of global leaders and mobile manufacturers have set up production facilities in India, hence the Finance Minister said that allocation for incentive schemes like M-SIPS and EDF have been exponentially increased to an all-time high of Rs 745 crores in 2017-18. Further, a new and restructured central scheme, namely, Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES) will be launched in 2017-18 to focus on the export infrastructure in a competitive world.

Budget has allocated Rs 3.96 lakh crores for infrastructure development in 2017-18. In the road sector, the budget allocation has been stepped up for highways from Rs 57,976 crores in BE 2016-17 to Rs. 64,900 crores in 2017-18. Further, 2,000 kms of coastal connectivity roads have been identified for construction and development to facilitate better connectivity with ports and remote villages.

Jaitley stated that the total length of roads, including those under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), built from 2014-15 till the current year is about 140,000 kms which is significantly higher than previous three years. Further, he informed that a specific programme for development of multi-modal logistics parks, together with multi modal transport facilities, will be drawn-up and implemented that will make our economy more competitive.

For transportation sector as a whole (including rail, roads & shipping), the budget has provided Rs 241,387 crores in 2017-18. This magnitude of investment will spur a huge amount of economic activity across the country and create more job opportunities, said Jaitley.

For strengthening the energy sector, the government has decided to set up strategic crude oil reserves. In the first phase, 3 such reserve facilities have been set up and in the second phase, it is proposed to set up caverns at 2 more locations, namely, Chandikhole in Odisha and Bikaner in Rajasthan. This will take the country’s strategic reserve capacity to 15.33 million metric tonnes (MMT).

Further, the Finance Minister proposed to create an integrated public sector ‘oil major’ which will be able to match the performance of international and domestic private sector oil and gas companies. In solar energy, the second phase of solar park development is proposed to be taken up for additional 20,000 MW capacity.