Building skills, innovation hold the key to India’s $500 billion electronic industry target by 2030

(from left to proper) Ashok Chandak, President, IESA; BS Srinivasan, Managing Companion, Viprof Electronics; Sonam Motwani, Founder and CEO, Karkhana.io; Venkatesha Babu, Resident Editor, businessline, and Sachin Dhruva Naik, Founder and CEO, Cuzor Labs, at a panel dialogue on ESDM – From Distributors to Worth Creators
| Photograph Credit score:
Bijoy Ghosh

India’s ambition to construct a $500 billion electronics industry by 2030 presents a significant alternative for MSMEs, pushed by rising home demand and exports. Whereas India nonetheless trails China in the manufacturing scale, industry stakeholders felt the focus must be on leveraging strengths in constructing expertise, innovation, design, IP creation and problem-solving, reasonably than making an attempt to replicate China’s mannequin.

Taking part in a panel dialogue on ESDM – From Distributors to Worth Creators at conclave, specialists identified that India’s electronics ecosystem remains to be closely depending on imported parts.

Whereas meeting operations have expanded considerably, a lot of the worth creation stays outdoors the nation. In sectors resembling smartphones, India could manufacture merchandise for international manufacturers, however the value-addition usually stays restricted as a result of a big share of parts continues to come from abroad, significantly China.

“Our journey as a rustic could be very a lot on observe when it comes to electronics manufacturing” mentioned Ashok Chandak, President, IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Affiliation). The target to construct a $500 billion electronics manufacturing industry consists of $400 billion in completed merchandise and $100 billion in parts that can match into it.

rising exports

Whereas exports from India are rising, the home consumption can also be rising very quick, mentioned Chandak. Past handsets and cell phones, there’s a large demand rising in industrial merchandise, telecom, home equipment, automotive electronics, defence and so forth, mentioned Chandak, exhorting the MSMEs to look past ‘Make in India’.

“Make in India is already completed. Received to transcend, that’s, design in India, construct in India, safe in India and get trusted world huge,” mentioned Chandak. Whereas stating that alternatives are considerable and unfolding, Chandak mentioned about 75 new tasks have been accredited below the Electronic Element Manufacturing Scheme, of which shut to a 3rd are from South India. About 11 tasks have been accredited in Karnataka and 13 in Tamil Nadu.

Whereas large alternative exists in electronic manufacturing, a number of challenges, resembling scarcity of expert expertise and lack of strong home part system, exist.

“We’re in a scenario the place we make iPhone for the world and earn 5 per cent worth of the cellphone,” mentioned BS Srinivasan, Managing Companion, Viprof Electronics.

“The labour productiveness is one-third in India, one-fifth of China. Except and till we get our labours to upskill, we gained’t get to shut to China,” mentioned Srinivasan, including that “in the Age of AI, industry 5.0, we’d like to talent 100 million individuals in the subsequent 5-10 years”.

Srinivasan additional burdened that there’s a necessity to target 10,000 MSMEs and take them from “know-how readiness degree 3 to know-how readiness degree 6”. “By 2030, if all of us work very onerous, I feel we will all have 1,500 applied sciences that we import made in India,” he added.

“We’re fairly far-off from turning into one other China when it comes to electronics manufacturing,” mentioned Sonam Motwani, Founder and CEO, Kharkhana.io, including that there are few areas the place we have now the means to excel and construct a power for ourselves and construct our personal IP.

Sachin Dhruva Naik mentioned when it comes to part ecosystem, China is a decade forward. We should always discover an perception and scale reasonably than making an attempt to copy China. “If anybody of us considering that we will compete with China by the quantity of being cheaper, I personally really feel it’s simply not the recreation,” he mentioned.

Printed on June 25, 2026