Govt approves electronics development fund of Rs 6,831 crore

Government has approved Rs 681 crore as seed capital for building a total corpus of over Rs 6,800 crore under the electronic development fund meant to support entrepreneurship and innovation in electronics and IT.

"My Ministry has approved Rs 6,831 venture fund for electronics development. We have given seed money of Rs 681 crore on the basis of which more venture capital will be raised," Law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters today.

The electronic development fund is the mother fund that will contribute to various funds under it for those who invest the money in companies for creation of intellectual property rights in the field of electronics and IT.

He said that investments in electronic manufacturing, which was just Rs 11,000 crore in June 2014, has increased to Rs 1,27,880 crore and from 6 crore mobile handsets in 2014-15, India's mobile manufacturing capacity has increased to 11 crore in 2015-16.

"With 72 new mobile handset and component manufacturing units set up in last two years, India has emerged as a mobile manufacturing hub. This includes 42 mobile manufacturing units and 30 component makers in the mobile phone segment," Prasad said.

He added that electronics production in the country has increased across segment with value of LED products registering an increase of 65 per cent to Rs 3,590 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 2,172 crore in 2014-15.

"Value of mobile handsets produced in India has increased by 185 per cent to Rs 54,000 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 18,900 crore in 2014-15. Next year, it is going to cross Rs 90,000 crore," Prasad said.