Union Cabinet approves new electronics policy; aims to generate 1 crore jobs by 2025

The Union Cabinet Tuesday approved a new national electronics policy with an aim to create Rs 26-lakh crore electronics manufacturing ecosystem and generate 1 crore jobs in the country by 2025.

"National Electronics Policy came in 2012. Now, we are revising it completely as National Electronics Policy 2019. We are targeting USD 400 billion (ecosystem) by 2025. It will give jobs to 1 crore people," Law and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said after the Cabinet meeting.

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The overall target will include the production of 100 crore mobile handsets by 2025, valued at about Rs 13 lakh crore, including 60 crore mobile handsets valued at nearly Rs 7 lakh crore for export.

Our government came on May 26, 2014, in 2014-15, electronic production growth in the country was 5.5 per cent.

In 2017-18, electronic production growth increased to 26.7 per cent as compared with 5.5 per cent in 2014-15, when the current government came into power, Prasad said. "Now, we want to take it to 32-33 per cent," he added.

The government plans to provide interest subvention and credit guarantee scheme to ease the financial burden on domestic manufacturers, he said.

The policy proposes to push strategic electronics ecosystem in the country that is critical for sectors such as defence, medical, and aviation and promote trusted electronics value-chain initiatives to improve national cybersecurity profile.

It promises a special package of incentives for mega projects which are extremely high-tech and entail huge investments, such as semiconductor facilities display fabrication.

The National Policy on Electronics 2019 proposes creation of a sovereign patent fund to promote the development and acquisition of intellectual property rights or patents in the electronics sector.

Besides the new electronics policy, the Cabinet also granted ex-post facto approval to the memorandum of understanding between India and Vietnam for cooperation in the field of communications.

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