The Indian hardware manufacturing industry may be down but not out. It's share may be decling compared to the rising fortunes of the unorganised, unbranded personal computer assemblers, but hardware manufacturers still managed to sell in excess of 1.4 million PCs during the last fiscal year. There's better news too: this year, they are looking forward to selling over two million PCs, riding on an unpredented boom in the market brought about by the Internet. Mind you, as an industry spokesperson will be quick to point out, it's still a none-too-favourable environment for manufacturing in the country. Yet there is hope. After helping rocket software to dizzy heights, there are indications that the government may have finally decided to give hardware a boost too. In an interview with Neeraj Saxena and Sudipto Dey of The Financial Express, MAIT's director Vinnie Mehta outlined the agenda of the industry. Excerpts:What will be the hardware industry's agenda during the Prime Minister's visit to the United States in September?
We want the visit to result in strategic tie-ups with Indian companies which will lead to more investments in IT hardware. More importantly, we want the visit to create opportunities for small and medium companies. From what we understand, the PM may find time to meet CEOs of some top IT companies during his US visit, including a number of hardware companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, IBM and Sun Microsystems. We hope that this visit will lead to a significant increase in investment in the country from these large companies. One does look forward to some announcements, but what would be the exact scenario is difficult to predict at this stage as the groundwork is still being done by the Ministry of Information Technology and the US embassy in consultation with the industry.
What are the comparative advantages that Indian hardware industry enjoys internationally?
The strengths of Indian industry lie in hardware enginnering and design. This is a high value-added area and is low on infrastructure support. India should harness these strengths. We need to boost the hardware designing further as there is a tremendous amount of skilled manpower in the country, but this needs the right manufacturing enviornment that can utilise these strengths.
What are the main issues staring the hardware industry and which it would like the government to address?
One of the major problems faced by the industry is procedural hassles that go with manufacturing in India. There is tremendous need for simplification of procedures for export and import of computer goods. The government should look at stepping up the velocity of business in IT hardware and bring down the turnaround time to internationally acceptable limits. There are a number of other issues which we have been taking up with the government such as creation of special economic zones for hardware.
Do you agree that India has missed the opportunity to become a hardware hub?
India may have lost out in PC manufacturing to other countries. However, with the convergence in IT, communications and consumer electronics, a new huge business opportunity is opening up for the hardware sector. The Indian IT industry should now focus on developing low-cost information access devices that will appeal to price-sensitive Indian and Asian markets. We should develop `unique Indian solutions for unique Indian needs'.
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