Centre to set up registry on imported electronics

The Union ministry of information technology and communication (IT&C) has proposed to set up a standard registry to check spurious and damaged imported electronics goods, which have bad impact on human health and society.

“Currently, 20-30 per cent of the total imported electronics goods are spurious and damaged. So, we have proposed to set up the registry to check and keep track of the spurious imported products,” said Ajay Kumar, joint secretary, IT&C ministry.

Addressing a CII workshop on ‘New policy initiatives and investment opportunities in ESDM (electronic system design and manufacturing)’ in Hyderabad on Wednesday, Kumar said that the proposed National Policy on Electronics (NPE) was going to be a big step towards increasing the manufacturing share in the gross domestic product (GDP) in India to 25 per cent from the current 16 per cent over a 10-year period.

The policy will work on five key areas, including setting up semiconductor wafer fabs, creating policies for preferential access in procurements by the government, and encouraging manufacture of specific high-priority electronics product lines in India by proving capital grants and to set up a dedicated electronic development fund.

The policy has also set goals under the National Electronics Mission by 2020 that the ESDM industry will attract investments worth $100 billion to generate $400 billion revenues by 2020, with a potential to create 28 million jobs, he said.

“To achieve this goal, the NPE has taken up 10 strategies and 50 initiatives,” Kumar said.