Three electronics clusters get Govt nod

New Delhi: The Government on Friday approved three projects worth Rs 200 crore under the Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) scheme.

The proposals were sent by the Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA) and the Madhya Pradesh State Electronics Corporation (MPSEDC).

While ELCINA had sent an application for a greenfield cluster at a projected cost of Rs 104.48 crore at Khushkhera in Bhiwadi (Rajasthan), the MPSEDC had submitted applications for two projects estimated at Rs 46.46 crore and Rs 42.92 crore, respectively, at Bhopal and Jabalpur.

Assistance
As per the Government’s scheme, the assistance will be restricted to 50 per cent of the project cost, subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore for every 100 acres of land.

Accordingly, ELCINA has sought assistance of Rs 47.41 crore over an area of 100.7 acre of land. The project is supported by the Rajasthan Government through Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation , according to a Government note seen by Business Line.

Similarly, MPSEDC, a Government of Madhya Pradesh undertaking proposes to develop a greenfield EMC in Badwai, Bhopal, over an area of 50 acres at an estimated project cost of Rs 46.46 crore, and has sought for Rs 22.26 crore in assistance from the Central Government.

It has also sought for a grant of Rs 24.63 crore from the Central Government for a greenfield EMC in Purva village, Jabalpur (for a project at total estimated cost of Rs 42.92 crore) over an area of 40 acres.

The ELCINA project is like to be completed by March 2015 with commercial operations starting from April 2015 onwards. The project is expected to directly employ 14,000 people, and 19,700 people indirectly.

It is also expected that companies may invest around Rs 1,200 crore in this project .

The project timeline for MPSEDC is to start within three months of final approval (after formation of special purpose vehicles) and are expected to start operating in three years.

Both the projects in Madhya Pradesh are expected to give direct employment to around 4,500 people, and to around 13,000 people indirectly.

The EMC is part of the Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme under the National Policy on Electronics 2012. One of the important objectives of the NPE is to achieve a turnover of around $400 billion by 2020, involving investment of around $100 billion and employment to around 28 million by 2020.

The three applications were discussed at the Steering Committee for Clusters held on Friday under the chairmanship of J. Satyanarayana, Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) and members included secretaries of the Planning Commission, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Department of Telecommunications.

Our Mangalore Bureau reports: India must encourage growth of the electronics manufacturing sector to cut dependence on imported components, said Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman of the Karnataka Vision Group on IT and President of CII while delivering the keynote address at a conference on ‘Future of IT and electronics’, in Mangalore on Friday.

He said the country was importing around $100 billion worth of electronics components, and this was likely to touch $400 billion by 2018. So, developing the domestic sector should be a national priority, he said. He suggested that the Government should make it easy and affordable for investors to fund the sector in India.