Cabinet clears National Policy on Electronics 2012

New Delhi: The Cabinet today cleared the National Policy on Electronics 2012, which aims to make the domestic electronic hardware manufacturing segment into a $400 billion industry by 2020.

"The Union Cabinet today approved the National Policy on Electronics 2012. The draft National Policy on Electronics was released for public consultation and it has now been finalised based on comments from various stakeholders," an official statement said.

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Under the policy, government has set objective "to create an eco-system for a globally competitive ESDM (Electronic System and Design and Manufacturing) sector in the country to achieve a turnover of about $400 billion by 2020 involving investment of about $100 billion and employment to around 28 million people at various levels". Demand for electronics product has been rapidly growing in the country.

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However, the domestic production in 2008-09 was worth about $20 billion. In the absence of a government initiative, it was estimated that at the current rate of growth, domestic production can cater to a demand of $100 billion by 2020 as against demand of $ 400 billion. The rest would have to be met by imports.

"This aggregates to a demand supply gap of nearly $300 billion by 2020. Unless the situation is corrected, it is likely that by 2020, electronics import may far exceed oil imports," the statement said.

PTI