Karnataka targets hardware sector for growth

Wednesday, 05 November 2003, 20:30 IST
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BANGALORE: Having retained its position at the top in the software sector, Karnataka has its eyes set on aggressively promoting the growth of the hardware sector for developing its IT industry. Though the IT-savvy state did not have much of a role in the phenomenal growth of the software sector, it is embarking on the ambitious goal of emerging as a favourite destination for development of the hardware sector, including industrial and consumer electronics. As a first step in that direction, the state government has set up a hardware task force to evolve a long-term policy and broad framework to attract investments in the sector from global and domestic players. "The government will soon come out with a policy based on the recommendations of the task force so that investors and entrepreneurs can set up manufacturing facilities and capitalise on the opportunities, for the state to emerge as a hardware hub for global markets," declared Chief Minister S.M. Krishna Wednesday. Inaugurating a two-day "India Hardware Summit 2003" organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Krishna also announced that a hardware technology park would be set up near Bangalore on the lines of the software technology parks in India. "The hardware technology park, under a special economic zone, will give a fillip to the Indian electronic industry to expand its operations by availing of state-of-the-art facilities with incentives and exemptions that will form an integral part of the hardware policy," Krishna stated. Admitting that the state as well as the country had not paid as much attention to the growth of the hardware sector as to the software sector over the years, Krishna said it was never too late to catch up with the world. The convergence of information and convergence technologies, he said, has forced the global electronic industry to reinvent the wheel and strive for innovative products cost-effectively. "If India and Bangalore could emerge as a top destination for outsourcing and off-shoring software services and products, the potential for repeating the feat in the hardware or manufacturing sector is just waiting to be tapped, thanks to the enormous talent pool and abundant natural resources in the country," Krishna asserted. As part of its efforts to have a first-mover advantage over other competitive states, the Karnataka Hardware Consortium has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Penang Electronic Manufacturers Consortium of Malaysia for jointly promoting and developing hardware products for domestic and international markets. The MoU was signed in the presence of Krishna and Penang Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon at the summit. Renowned as the silicon island of East, Penang has a large concentration of hardware/electronic manufacturers, including Dell, AMD and Texas Instruments. Karnataka Hardware Task Force chairman and Texas Instruments (India) managing director Bobby Mitra said on the occasion that the Indian electronics/hardware industry was faced with the challenge of moving up the value chain and becoming competitive on engineering, quality and cost parameters. "In view of India's strength in design and development capabilities, collaboration with the Penang Electronics Consortium will enable the Indian software industry to leverage their domain expertise to jointly develop innovative products for global markets," Mitra affirmed. The lopsided growth and development of the hardware sector has made India lag behind even smaller developing countries in the Asian region on the export front. Against $9 billion software exports during the last fiscal (2002-03), Indian hardware/electronics exports remained at $1.25 billion, which was less than the domestic turnover of $4 billion.
Source: IANS
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