State govt to come up with separate policies for IT/ITES & electronics sectors

A draft has been prepared and submitted to the government to be finalized.

Written by Lakshmi Ajay
Ahemadabad | June 29, 2014 04:59 AM IST

3 min read

The state government is set to come up with two separate policies for the electronics and the IT/ITES sectors by July so as to give equal focus to each. With Gujarat’s IT policy having expired in 2011 and after being delayed due to the Lok Sabha election, the government is now considering having two separate IT policies rather than having a combined policy like before, say highly placed sources,

A draft has been prepared in consultation with the industries and submitted to the government to be finalized. In what may bring cheer to the state’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, after the Centre recently announced sops for electronics manufacturing in eight cities under the Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (M-SIPS), including Vadodara, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad, is that the state has sped up efforts in the three greenfield electronic manufacturing clusters set to come up in Sanand near Ahmedabad, Halol in Vadodara and Vitthalapur in Mehsana that were announced last year.

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Confirming this development at the recent Gujarat Electronics & Software Industries Association (GESIA) awards, S J Haider, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of Gujarat said, “In 2013, Gujarat IT industry had a turnover of about Rs 6.000 crore and exports of nearly Rs 1,000 crore. The Gujarat Government is dedicated to promoting the right ecosystem for a vibrant IT and IT-enabled services industry and is committed to the realisation of this vision. In so far as the electronics industry is concerned, we have done a lot of brainstorming with the stakeholders and a forward looking landmark policy will be declared shortly by the state government.”

He added, “Recently three brownfield electronic manufacturing clusters were notified by the Centre in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Gandhinagar. These clusters will enable electronics to avail themselves of benefits under (M-SIPS). There is still a great scope for diversification in the capital-intensive electronics sector and all the labour-intensive service-oriented IT software domain. There is an urgent need for a stronger foothold, to build upon our existing capabilities.”

DST officials said the groundwork on the three greenfield project announced last year in Sanand, Halol and Vitthalapur in Mehsana have already begun. While the land has been identified by the Gujarat Industries Development Commission (GIDC), tenders were floated and a consulting agency named Mahindra Consulting Group has been given the task of coming up with a Detailed Project Report (DPR) which will be later sent to the GoI to get the cluster notified.