To promote
'Made-in-India' products within the country, the Ministry of
Communications and IT is expected to issue a mandate wherein it
suggests 30% procurement of the domestically-manufactured electronic
equipments and IT peripherals for PSUs and government undertakings.
In order to
develop Indian intellectual property, a preferential treatment will
be given to local manufacturers. The National Manufacturing
Competitiveness Council (NMCC) has come up with a set of
recommendations while TRAI has also attempted to develop a Telecom
Equipment Manufacturing Policy (TEMP).
The policy
advocates that a 'manufactured in India' product should have a local
value addition at the rate of 25% in the first year of production
while 45% by the fifth year.
India has
allowed 100% FDI in electronics and IT. However, TEMP recommendation
paper argues that WTO does not discourage countries to develop
policies to promote domestic manufacturing. The Committee of
Secretaries has already given a green signal to this proposed policy
while the Cabinet is likely to take it up for final approval.
HCL
Infosystems welcomed the government's effort for creating an
ecosystem for domestic manufacturing. The company said that the
industry today requires policies that will foster a sustainable
ecosystem for innovation, R&D and manufacturing; and maintaining
globally competitive tax regime to enable domestic electronic
manufacturing.
ICT industry
veteran, Ashwini Aggarwal said that the Indian domestic manufacturing
is not getting encouragement due to falling import duties.
“Manufacturing is one of the largest job creators. The government
should promote local manufacturing opportunities, otherwise the
future would be bleak,” he said.
“This would
encourage good practice and it's a good move to attract
investments. The focus should be around getting large investments and
facilitating value addition in the country,” concluded Alok
Bharadwaj, VP, MAIT.