New hardware policy in three weeks

A new hardware policy would be announced by the Centre to synergise it with the national semiconductor policy in the next two-three weeks.

M Madhavan Nambiar, additional secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, today said the new policy would cover all aspects including tariffs, R&D and incentives, keeping in mind the package announced for the semiconductor industry early this year. "This is being done since it has to be in sync with the recently-introduced semiconductor policy," he said, adding the policy was in its final stages of preparation.

Stating infrastructure was a crucial input in attracting investments to the sectors, he said the Centre was keen on promoting information technology investment regions, each with a 50-60 km radius having world-class infrastructure, in collaboration with the states. "We want at least three-four such regions to come up in the country and it will be modelled on the lines of petroleum, chemicals and petrochemicals investment regions (PCPIRs) where the Centre would also provide funds for infrastructure development," he said.

According to Nambiar, the value of computer hardware and semiconductor imports into India is expected to exceed the oil import bill at $320 billion by 2015. This has prompted the Centre to facilitate more investments in these areas to handle the demand-supply situation for the products domestically, he added.

Over $20 billion investments had been committed to India in the last couple of years in IT, telecom and electronics sectors and the response from investors continues to be good, he said. A couple of weeks ago, a Taiwanese delegation met the Department of Telecommunications with a proposal to start semiconductor manufacturing operations in India.

The IT ministry is also seized up with the issue of skill development in IT and hardware industries where the country is expected to require 7-8 million skilled professionals by 2015 from 1.5 million at present, he said. The Department of Information Technology has already held a couple of meetings with the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) and engaged a study to assess the skills currently available and what more is required.

Nambiar was the chief guest at a seminar on semiconductor manufacturing clusters and development of the ecosystem," jointly organised by the Indian Semiconductor Association (ISA) and the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), which is the nodal agency and infrastructure developer for the upcoming Fab City at Hyderabad.