In a move to put India significantly on the map when it comes to electronics manufacturing, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has formed an advisory board. The advisory board has been formed to make India a $300 billion electronics manufacturing hub by 2026. MeitY has added members on the board from major local and multinational electronics brands and industry bodies and it has been termed as “Digital India Electronics Mission $300 Billion.” Let’s find out more.
The Advisory Board
Back in December 2014, a task force was set up to focus on fast-tracking the Indian smartphone manufacturing industry. The newly formed advisory board acts as a successor to it. The focus of the new group, however, has been expanded to other categories like IT hardware, wearables, LED lights and more. A report from ET Telecom has revealed the members that will be part of the advisory group. The report suggests that the group will consist of Hariom Rai, Managing Director at Lava, Virat Bhatia, Managing Director at Apple, Manu Kapoor, Senior Vice President at Samsung, Josh Foulger, Country Head and MD at Bharat FIH, Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman at ICEA, Ketan Patel, Managing Director at HP India, Alok Ohrie, President and MD at Dell, Nivruti Rai, Country Head at Intel India, Sreejith Nair, CEO, Coconics and lastly, Amitesh Kumar Sinha, Joint Secretary (Electronics), MeitY. Pankaj Mohindroo talked about the advisory board stating that the basis for forming the group came from a report published by ICEA that outlined the strategies, challenges and policy work needed to achieve the $300 bn target. He further added that the report outlines that to achieve the $300 billion target, mobile manufacturing has to increase from $30 billion in 2021 to $126 billion by 2026, while IT hardware manufacturing has to go from $3 billion presently to $25 billion, and so on. The advisory group will schedule a meeting in the foreseeable future to decide on the roadmap, shape the industry’s competitiveness, mitigate disabilities, and improve the ease of doing business. The said report from ICEA informs that while the earlier target was at $400 billion by 2025, disruptions from the pandemic led to a revised target of $300 billion, which is a 300% increase from the $75 billion level in 2021.
