Amidst global economic slowdown, India continues to have high hopes for growth. Increasing demand in consumer electronic goods market, made India one of the preferred investment destinations for global players. Along with consumer electronics it is estimated that the India’s defence electronics purchases will be about Rs 600000 crore in the next ten years. (Source : indianexpress). To meet these huge expectation SMEs have important roles to play.

Currently India is a major exporter of goods like Display Technologies, Entertainment Electronics, Optical Storage Devices, Passive Components, Electromechanical Components, Semiconductor Designing and Electronic Manufacturing Services. But at the other end India is also heavily dependent on imported electronic components. It is being estimated that 70-80% of electronics components are being imported from China, USA and other countries to make a finished product. And ever-increasing import bill and falling dollar have put serious questions in view of the economic sustainability in the long run. In a recently published article by Pradeep Dutta (Chairman, Indian Semi Conductor Association) has mentioned that:

Indian semiconductor industry has grown from $65.1 billion in 2010 to $96.5 billion in 2012 and under National Electronic Mission it has been projected to reach $400 billion in 2020. With 20% of electronic goods being manufactured locally, with this India will able to reach $100 billion in 2020 and the remaining $300 billion has to be imported. Currently Indian electronic industry adds less than 2% in GDP and has less than 1 % share in Global electronics manufacturing market.

Industry experts also put forth their concern about exceeding imports in electronics components which is likely to surpass oil imports by 2022-23, if not measured properly and this will add up the fiscal deficit which will not be an ideal situation for  the Indian economy.

Reviving domestic electronics manufacturing industry is the only feasible solution to meet these challenges and for which trained manpower will be required. J. Satyanarayana, secretary, department of electronics and information technology has estimated that by the end of 2020 Indian electronics industry will require 2.8 million professionals at various levels.  Also Government has allotted Rs.10000 crore as electronic development fund to promote electronic hardware manufacturing. Moreover Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA) is coming up with electronics components manufacturing clusters in different parts of the country on similar lines of  IT parks for the IT industry. Now we have to wait and see whether these measures help India to achieve $400 billion target by the end of 2020 or not.