Under fire for losing big-ticket projects like Vedanta-Foxconn and Tata-Airbus to neighbouring Gujarat, Maharashtra's deputy chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, announced on Monday the establishment of an electronic manufacturing cluster (EMC) in Ranjangaon, near Pune. He added that it will be developed over an area of 297.11 acres and will cost Rs 492.85 crore.

“This EMC is targeted to attract a Rs 2,000 crore investment and to generate 5,000 employment opportunities,” Fadnavis said on his social media posts, emphasising that it is likely to be ready within 32 months. 

“This EMC will target units of industrial electronics, consumer electronics, solar PV manufacturing, e-mobility products/components, etc,” he further added. 

The development comes weeks after Vedanta and Taiwan's Foxconn announced plans to invest $19.5 billion for setting up of semiconductor and display production plants in Gujarat. It immediately led to the raising of allegations of the State government passing on the project to poll-bound Gujarat. The tempers were further elevated after the Centre announced that the Rs 22,000 crore Tata-Airbus joint venture to manufacture C295 transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force would come up in Gujarat. 

The larger picture
The Union Cabinet approved the National Policy on Electronics 2019 in February 2019. The Policy aims to position India as a global hub for Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) by encouraging and driving capabilities in the country for creating core components, such as chipsets and by creating an enabling environment for the industry to compete globally. The Centre expects domestic manufacturing and exports throughout the Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) value chain for economic development in order to reach a turnover of USD 400 billion (approximately Rs 26,00,000 crore) by 2025. 

Creating a niche
Amongst the salient features of the policy includes providing of a special incentive package for megaprojects that are extremely high-tech and require large investments, such as semiconductor facilities, display fabrication, and so on. In addition to it, the policy looks to encourage industry-led R&D and innovation in all sub-sectors of electronics, including grass-roots innovations and early-stage start-ups in emerging technology areas such as 5G, IoT/sensors, artificial intelligence (Al), machine learning, virtual reality (VR), drones, robotics, additive manufacturing, photonics, nano-based devices amongst others. Also, it will provide incentives and support for significantly increasing the availability of skilled labour, including re-skilling.