Why in News?

• Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued draft ‘National Policy on Electronics 2018’ (NPE 2018) for Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) Sector of India.

Highlights of the policy:

• Aim: To promote domestic manufacturing in entire value-chain of ESDM sector for spur economic development in the country. It also aims to double the target of mobile phone production from 500 million units in 2019 to 1 billion by 2025 to meet objective.
• Promoting ease-of-doing business for the entire electronic system design manufacturing or ESDM sector.
• Encouraging industry-led research and development and innovation in all sub-sectors of electronics.
• The policy targets production of one billion mobile handsets by 2025
• Push the start-up ecosystem in emerging technology areas.
• Provision of suitable direct tax benefits.
• Replacing the M-SIPS (Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme) with schemes that are easier to implement such as interest subsidy and credit default guarantee, etc.
• The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) will “coordinate with the concerned ministries/departments to provide incentives to industry for rapid and robust expansion of electronics hardware manufacturing within the country.