Centre finalising subsidy norms for electronics production

The Centre is finalising guidelines for production-linked subsidies for companies willing to manufacture electronic items like microprocessors, semiconductors and others within India, an official said on Wednesday.

"We have introduced an element of production subsidy, now we are in process of finalising guidelines and since there are different kinds of projects, we are looking for specific technical inputs," Ajay Kumar, additional secretary in Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), said at an event organised by Assocham.

"Where we need support in that is, to be able to pin-point what needs to be subsidised and how, some work is going on, the consultants are working on it, but any specific inputs from industry are more than welcome," he added.

Ajay Kumar also said that the government is working on fabless chip design policy. "That is work under progress, it will support the companies involved in chip design."

He emphasised upon the need to manufacture low-priced laptops in India to spur computer manufacturing. "Maybe a price point of Rs. 10,000 and it cannot be a device which can be seen as a low grade version of laptop."