The Indian Cabinet on Tuesday approved the National Manufacturing Policy, which has identified telecommunications as one of the “industries with strategic significance.”
“A strategic requirement of the country would warrant the launch of programs to build national capabilities to make India a major force in sectors like aerospace; shipping; IT hardware and electronics; telecommunication equipment; defense equipment; and solar energy,” the policy document states.
“The level of ambition has to be high to begin with. I shouldn’t be saying this but it’s a game changer. We have got a very robust policy framework that will be attractive to investors. We have to bear the larger objective in mind. The share of manufacturing in India has been stagnating, which is much higher in other countries such as China, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, where it is 25% to 34%. So, the first objective is to increase the share of manufacturing in overall economy to at least 25% by 2022,” Anand Sharma, India’s commerce, industry and textiles minister, told The Times of India.
The manufacturing policy is also expected to boost the growth in India’s telecom manufacturing sector.
The cabinet also cleared the $4.5 billion National Optical Fiber Network plan to link local self-governments with a fiber optic broadband network. The objective of the plan is to extend the existing optical fiber network from district/block headquarters’ level to the local self-government level by utilizing the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
