IT hub India seeks to chip away at China’s grip on electronics

India looking to produce electronic items for domestic market that defy Western model of ‘use and throw’, as it eyes pivot from IT services to production

Country also set to benefit from China’s ‘trust deficit’ arising from zero-Covid policy that disrupted supply chains and spurred firms like Apple and Foxconn to look elsewhere, insider says

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India is taking steps to be far more hands on in the electronics sector. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 5:00pm, 13 Mar 2023

Rachna Thakur, 21, ploughs through her work on a laptop screen that regularly flashes, stopping her flow and making it difficult to concentrate. But for now, there is little she can do about it.

“It is too expensive to repair or upgrade,” said the student, who lives in Delhi.

For millions in India, her plight will strike a chord, as they cannot afford to scrap electronics from global brands which quickly become outdated. But now the nation’s edged-out home-grown sector is plotting ways to meet local needs.

“Our model is to create products which are exactly what the market wants,” said Ajai Chowdhry, chairman of the EPIC Foundation, a non-profit industry initiative launched last year. “This whole Western model of use and throw is not what India does.”

The organisation has released its first product, a computer tablet for education, that can easily be mended and revamped. The initiative is in its infancy but highlights a broader India programme to pivot from IT services into actually making electronic products.

Three years ago, New Delhi launched financial incentives worth US$26 billion to scale up production in 14 sectors, including electronic goods like laptops and mobile phones, as well as electric vehicles.

India, which spends US$25 billion a year to import semiconductors, also launched a programme to make chips wherein the federal government, together with some states, promised to invest up to 70 per cent of the cost of setting up a plant.

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