India to set up electronics development fund: Ravi Shankar Prasad

5 Dariya News

New Delhi 17-Jun-2014

The government will set up electronics development fund to support manufacturing of electronics products that would help create nearly three crore jobs and reduce imports, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Tuesday.Talking to reporters here, Prasad said the government will provide subsidies to encourage manufacturing of electronics products in the country. On size of the proposed fund, Prasad said: “It is in an initial stage. We are working out the details.” “Electronics manufacturing is going to be one of the priority areas of the government...2 crore 80 lakh people are expected to get jobs in electronics manufacturing sector,” he said. 

Prasad said the government has identified eight cities for setting up greenfield electronics manufacturing facilities. The cities include Ghaziabad, Vadodara, Thane, Nashik and Aurangabad.According to the minister brownfield clusters will be developed in the cities like Bhopal, Hyderabad, Bhiwadi, Jabalpur and Hosur. Greenfield development are those where the infrastructure is built from the scratch, while in the case of brownfield some infrastructure exists and expansion is done. 

Prasad, who also holds law portfolio in the Narendra Modi-led central government, said soon India would be making chips. To encourage chip manufacturing, the government has decided to set up semiconductor wafer fabrication (fab) manufacturing facilities in the country. Fab manufacturing is essential for chip-making industry. Currently there is no chip-making facility in India. “Fab manufacturing is going to be an important area. We have decided that we will promote fab manufacturing on a priority basis,” he said.