India must build strong design capabilities: Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

New Delhi: Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday, said due to rising geopolitical tensions and changing of geo-economic landscape, there are challenges for the electronic industry and to face it, Indian companies have to build strong design capabilities achieve Six Sigma-level quality and develop resilient domestic supply chains.

He was speaking at an event organised to celebrate the success of Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme (ICMS) jointly organised by the MInistry of Electronics and Information Technology and India Cellular and Electronics Association ( ICEA).

"The way geopolitics and the way geoeconomics are emerging the challenges will be bigger and in those challenges, in those challenging periods your ability to have a good control of the supply chain behind you will define your resilience and will define your ability to compete during the difficult times" he said.

Emphasising that deep design capabilities are non-negotiable, the minister said that global market opportunities will not remain open to manufacturers who lack strong in-house design teams.

Stressing on strengthening domestic supply chains, he said manufacturers were encouraged to expand sourcing from Indian suppliers and invest in bringing them up the value chain.

On quality Vaishnaw said the manufacturing sector has already set new standards, especially in the automobile, aerospace, and chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors, where quality today meets global benchmarks.

Insisting that the government will continue to engage with the electronic industry, the Minister said "Hopefully very soon we'll come out with a new skilling framework also for electronics manufacturing where we will be tying up with certain organizations who have done very good work in the social fields."

" ECMS will anchor global value chains in India, create globally competitive Indian champions in every major product vertical, and accelerate our march toward the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of USD 500 billion in electronics manufacturing. This is India’s next industrial revolution, and we are fully committed to delivering it" said Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman, ICEA.