The draft policy, released by the Union Communications and Information Technology Minister, Kapil Sibal has proposed to achieve a turnover of about $400 billion by 2020 involving investment of about $100 billion. It also aims at ensuring employment to around 28 million in the sector by 2020.

This would be a quantum jump from production level of about $20 billion in 2009. This includes achieving a turnover of $55 billion of chip design and embedded software industry and $80 billion worth of exports.

The policy also proposes setting up of over 200 electronic manufacturing clusters. Another important objective of the policy is to significantly upscale high-end human resource creation to 2500 PhDs annually by 2020 in the sector.

“The global size of the industry is $1.7 trillion and is expected to rise to $2.4 trillion by 2010,” Sibal informed and added “our production is only $20 billion and we import a lot of items and if we do not gear up our loins now our import bill on this account will rise to $300 billion by 2020 to meet the needs of the industry.”

Of the three sectors – IT, Telecommunications and Electronics - Electronics presents special challenges. The draft policy seeks to address the major barriers which include lack of a strong base, an adverse international environment and failure to build an enabling eco-system. It has suggested handling of e-wastes.

The Ministry’s draft policy will be sent for approval for approval by the Union Cabinet. The Ministry has also planned to come out with a draft National Policy on IT and another on Telecommunications soon. This triad of policies would drive a national agenda for ICTE.

The draft electronic policy has suggested providing attractive fiscal incentives across the value chain of the ESDM sector through Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (M-SIPS) and setting up of semiconductor wafer fab facilities and its eco-system for design and fabrication of chips and chip components.

It has suggested preferential market access for domestically manufactured electronic products including mobile devices, SIM cards with enhanced features, with special emphasis on Indian products for which IPR reside in India to address strategic and security concerns of the Government consistent with international obligations in procurement.

Incentives should be provided for setting up of over 200 electronic manufacturing clusters with world class logistics and infrastructure. It has proposed creation of an “Electronic Development Fund” for promoting innovation, R&D and commercialization in ESDM, nano-electronics and IT sectors including providing support for seed capital, venture capital and growth stages of manufacturing.

It has proposed using innovation and R&D capabilities to develop electronic products catering to domestic needs and conditions at affordable price points.

Very large scale integration (VLSI) specific incubation centres should be set up across country. The draft policy suggested developing an Indian microprocessor for diverse applications/ strategic needs.

It has proposed a 10 year stable tax regime for the ESDM sector and setting up a specialized institute for semiconductor chip design and setting up of skill-oriented courses for electronic designs along with hands-on laboratories enabling graduates from other disciplines to migrate to ESDM.

The draft policy favoured formulation and mandating standards for electronic products specific to Indian conditions of power, climate, handling and creation of linkages for long-term partnership between domestic ESDM industry and strategic sectors like Defence, Atomic Energy and Department of Space.

It has proposed setting up of centres of excellence in the area of automotive electronics, avionics, and industrial electronics and adoption of best practices in e-waste management

The draft policy has favoured setting up of a National Electronics Mission with industry participation to advance the implementation of various programmes in this policy. The Department of Information Technology should be renamed as Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) to reflect the desired focus on electronics.