FinMin clears SPV proposal for electronic clusters

Electronics manufacturing clusters are important to mitigate electronics imports in the country

The Finance Ministry has cleared IT and Telecom Ministry’s proposal on the structure and functioning of special purpose vehicles required for implementation of electronics manufacturing clusters (EMC).

“The Finance Ministry has cleared special purpose vehicles proposal on electronics manufacturing clusters. The detailed guidelines will be notified by Department of Electronics and Information Technology next week,” a government official said.

In July 2012, the Cabinet had approved the proposal to offer financial support for the development of EMCs.

The government will provide financial assistance to EMCs through SPVs governing them. For new EMCs, the assistance will be up to 50 per cent of the project cost subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore for every 100 acre of land.

For brownfield EMCs, the assistance limit is up to 75 per cent of the project cost subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore.

Under National Policy on Electronics, the government has set a target to set up 200 clusters to promote manufacturing in the sector. Each cluster will house full eco-system— factories, product design centre, educational institute etc, required for development and production of an electronic product.

EMCs are seen as key step to mitigate electronics imports in the country. Such imports are expected to increase to $300 billion by 2020 in absence domestic manufacturing.

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has already approved 18 EMCs till date. The department is going to notify 10 more such clusters in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.