© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Stating that India’s production of electronic goods has increased sixfold over the past decade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that manufacturing of items such as chipsets, batteries, displays and sensors in the country should grow further as global companies are looking for reliable partners. He added that by focusing on data centres and cloud infrastructure, India could become a global data hub.
“In the electronics manufacturing sector, global companies are looking for trusted partners who can deliver at scale and with reliability. Can Indian companies not become reliable global suppliers and design partners? Domestic production in the sector, from chipsets to batteries, from displays to sensors, should pick up. The world is generating more data than ever before, and so data security, storage and sovereignty will become important. By strengthening data centres and cloud infrastructure, India can become a global data hub,” Modi said at the India Mobile Congress.
Modi said India must identify bottlenecks in global supply chains and offer solutions to the world. “For instance, we identified semiconductor manufacturing capacity. It was limited to a few countries. The world wanted diversification. India took an important step in this sector. Today, work is underway in 10 semiconductor manufacturing units,” he said.
The Prime Minister said that mobile phone manufacturing has risen 28 times, and exports have risen 127 times since 2014. “About 45 Indian firms are connected to the supply chain of one major mobile phone company. This has resulted in 3.5 lakh jobs. And this is not just one company — many firms are now manufacturing on a large scale,” he said.
“India recently launched its Made in India 4G stack. It is a big step towards the country’s technological independence. India is now among the five countries with this capability. Through indigenous 4G and 5G, we will ensure seamless connectivity for citizens. The day we launched the 4G stack, we activated 1 lakh 4G towers. This enabled 2 crore people to become part of the digital movement,” Modi said.
He added that the enactment of the Telecommunications Act, which replaced the outdated Indian Telegraph Act and Indian Wireless Telegraph Act, has helped establish a new framework aligned with 21st-century needs, with the new law functioning not as a regulator but as a facilitator. India is now the world’s second-largest telecom market and the second-largest 5G market. Modi said that India also ranks among the leading nations in per-user data consumption, signifying that digital connectivity is no longer a privilege or a luxury but an integral part of everyday life.
