India needs own design ecosystem, lower costs to be electronics hub: CII

The Government's mission to develop India as the manufacturing hub for electronics components and sub-assemblies is gaining new traction with industry targeting its efforts at critical actions required to transition India's electronics sector ecosystem from an 'import dependent assembly led manufacturing' to 'component level value-added manufacturing as ideated in a report on "Developing India as the Manufacturing Hub for Electronics Components and Sub- Assemblies" by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

- NIVEDITA MUKHERJEE

India could well be somewhere on the way, if, as the report suggests, the demand for components and subassemblies in 2023 is at USD 45.5 billion which can support USD 102 billion worth of electronics production. This demand is expected to scale to USD 240 billion to support the USD 500 billion worth electronics production by 2030. Priority components and sub-assemblies including PCBAS, are projected to grow at a robust CAGR of 30 per cent, reaching USD 139 billion by 2030.

However, manufacturing related cost disabilities vis-àvis other competing economies like China, Vietnam, Mexico, lack of big domestic manufacturing corporations, lack of domestic design ecosystem for Indian companies and lack of raw materials ecosystem add to the challenges that disable the domestic manufacturing of components and sub-assemblies in India.