The Centre will soon introduce a slew of policies, including a revamped one on electronics manufacturing and a data protection policy, to achieve the aim of making India a trillion dollar digital economy, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Friday.
“The participants were unanimous that one trillion dollar digital is an understatement and India has the potential of reaching two-three trillion dollar digital economy,” Mr. Prasad told reporters after a meeting with select industry experts invited by the Ministry of Electronics and IT to discuss the roadmap to achieve the target by 2025.
The meeting was attended by Nasscom President R. Chandrashekhar, Google India’s Rajan Anandan, Wipro’s Rishad Premji, Indian Cellular Association National President Pankaj Mohindroo, Internet and Mobile Association of India President Subho Ray, Tech Mahindra’s C.P. Gurnani and Hike Messenger CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal, among others.
After the deliberations it was decided that the Centre will introduce a new revamped policy to push manufacturing of electronics in the country, Mr. Prasad said. “We will be shortly laying down the new electronics policy because, between the old policy and (now), India under Narendra Modi has changed completely.”
“Cyber security was also discussed. Low-cost cyber security products have great potential... and we are going to have a framework for data security and data protection,” he said, adding that they will also come up with a new software product policy.
Start-up policy
The minister added that the idea of setting up special innovative zones for start-ups was discussed and a framework for start-up cluster policy will be developed.
Mr. Prasad pointed out that the industry highlighted the need to facilitate more start-ups in areas like education, agriculture and healthcare. “I have decided that we will have a coordinated action with Health, Agriculture and HRD Ministries to promote an ecosystem to facilitate more start-ups in these areas.”
The industry also highlighted the need for setting up a dispute resolution mechanism and liberal regulatory norms.
The government expects digital economy to grow to more than $1 trillion by 2025 from current about $413 billion, with maximum contribution from IT/ITeS sector ($350 billion) and electronics sector ($300 billion).
