New policy on electronics likely in two months: IT secretary

The government expects to finalise new National Policy on Electronics in next couple of months, which will aim to boost design and innovation along with domestic production, Electronics and IT secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney said today.

"Hopefully in couple of months we will be coming out with new National National Policy on electronics," Sawhney said at an Assocham event.

He said there is huge opportunity in India for emergence of next generation devices which don't exist at the moment and the new policy will look at encouraging design and innovation for development of innovative products.

"It is quite possible that dominant devices of 2025-30 are not existing today. We must not position India as not only a manufacturing hub but a hub for design innovation and manufacturing. Our policy will make tremendous effort to enable this," Sawhney said.

There is huge scope in India for - medical electronics, automotive electronics, power electronics, defence electronics and government has held wide consultation with industry players and other stakeholders to address their issues, he added.

The first National Policy on Electronics was rolled out in 2012 which offered incentives to companies setting up manufacturing units in the country.

According to data shared by IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, around 110 million mobile phones in 2015-16 as compared to 60 million in 2014-15 and in value terms mobile manufacturing industry produced mobile phones worth Rs 54,000 crore in FY15-16, compared to Rs 18,900 crore in FY14-15, which reached Rs 94,000 crore by the end of 2017 in the country.

Sawhney said best research and innovations happen where there is problem to be solved.

"With a sort of tongue in cheek remark, we have a very large number of problems to be solved. India is probably a very rich nation when it comes to problems. There are problems in agriculture...pollution, achieving our swachhta goals, problems in transportation... Where there are problems to be solved, it is fertile ground for innovation....there is tremendous potential for innovations for emergence of new devices. This is india's decade," Sawhney said.