ICT policy to include provisions for hardware investors

The new Information and Communication (ICT) policy will have provisions for attracting the investors both from the software and hardware industry.

“Instead of having separate policies for the software and hardware, the new ICT policy will have provisions needed to attract the investors in the ESDM (Electronic System Design and Manufacturing) sector,” said an official in the state IT department.

As per the estimates, the demand for electronics in India was $45 billion in 2008-09 and it is expected to touch $400 billion by 2020. The Union government’s National Policy on Electronics has set a target to attract an investment of around $100 billion and create employment of around 28 million by 2020.
 

The decision to make a single policy was taken at meeting of a 15-member panel formed to finalise the state’s new ICT policy.

The guidelines for the ESDM sector will be in line with the policy of the Union government, added the official.

The state government has recently engaged Indian Semiconductor Association to prepare a roadmap for Odisha for the promotion of ESDM sector and Bhubaneswar has been identified as one of the brownfield electronics manufacturing cluster by the government of India.

Meanwhile, the state has readied the draft MoU (memorandum of understanding) to be signed with the government of Hsinchu science county of Taiwan for developing a world class science and technology park.

The state appointed committee headed by IT secretary Madhusudan Padhi has formulated six member sub-committee to give feedback for making the policy industry friendly.

The committee comprises of BV Naidu, who was instrumental for formulating the ICT policy of Karnataka with representatives from Software Technology Parks of India(STPI), Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO), Confederation of Information Technology Enterprises (CITE), IT Association of Odisha (ITAO) and Industrial Investment Promotion Corporation of Odisha Limited (IPICOL).