Replicate mobile mfg growth in electronics: Kannanthanam

Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam today exhorted the IT and electronics industry to replicate the "dramatic" growth of domestic mobile manufacturing in consumer electronics sector as well.
The minister, speaking at an Assocham event, said under the Digital India programme, the government has taken a series of measures to promote electronics manufacturing to position the country as a production hub for electronics goods.
The turnover in mobile manufacturing has shown "a dramatic improvement", he said adding that production in consumer electronics has however not increased at the same pace.
"This is one area, where the industry needs to act up...I think this is an area in which we need to have a detailed discussion," the Minister of State for Electronics and IT pointed out.

The information security requirements of the digital society will throw up the need for 5,00,000 cyber security experts over the next three years, the minister said citing industry estimates.
He further asked the industry to share information on cyber security breaches, as pooling of information will enable better handling of such incidents.

Kannanthanam said Computer Emergency Response Teams or CERT (an expert group that handles computer security incidents) are also being established for sectors like telecom, finance and power as well as states like Kerala and Maharashtra.
"Security of online transactions is becoming a big issue," he said.
The minister also expressed disappointment over the pace of digitisation in healthcare sector.

"I am pretty disappointed with this entire digitisation in the health sector," he said citing a particular case of a large hospital not maintaining digital health records, including the diagnosis and medicines being prescribed for patients who come for consultation.
Additional Secretary in Ministry of Electronics and IT, Ajay Kumar said the government is working on a new policy, which will further spur electronics manufacturing.
He said a cyber security product procurement policy to give preference to domestic industry is also in the offing.