48% jump, Centre chips in for IT sector

In a boost for the IT sector, the government will continue to provide incentives for setting up plants to manufacture semiconductors, large-scale electronics and information technology hardware.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today announced an outlay of Rs 26,026 crore for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY), which is responsible for key schemes in the electronics manufacturing and semiconductor ecosystem. The total allocation has been raised by about 48 per cent.

A sum of Rs 7,000 crore has been allocated for a scheme to fund, design and produce semiconductors, silicon-based sensors and discrete semiconductors besides semiconductor assembly, testing, marking and test facilities in India. This includes Rs 2,499 crore for setting by semiconductor fabrication units.

In February 2023, the Cabinet had okayed three proposals of private investment worth Rs 1,26,000 crore in the sector. These included three new plants — two in Gujarat and one in Assam — to address multiple layers of the semiconductor market.

These will produce chips for various sectors, including defence, automobiles and telecommunications.

The government has also allocated Rs 8,885 crore as production-linked incentive (PLI) for large-scale electronics manufacturing, including Rs 115-crore support for IT hardware, in the Budget. The Semi-Conductor Laboratories, Mohali, has been allocated Rs 500 crore. Apart from the semiconductor and hardware PLI scheme, the ministry is also responsible for public sector undertakings such as National Informatics Centre, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, among others.

The Budget estimate of the C-DAC increased marginally to Rs 275 crore while for the UIDAI, it remained unchanged at Rs 600 crore. (With PTI inputs)