Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT, skill development and entrepreneurship, attended the India Ideas Summit organised by US - India Business Council (USIBC) and spoke on creating manufacturing economies.
In his opening remarks, Chandrasekhar mentioned about the progress of world’s largest technology driven vaccination programme (Covid-19) that is currently underway in India. He highlighted the remarkable feat of vaccinating 930 million people and affirmed that the target of vaccinating 1.3 billion people by December shall be met shortly.
He credited the success of this programme to the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who emphasized upon leveraging Information technology for running the largest ever vaccination Campaign. Fast track Development of platform like Cowin, has not just provided a strong backbone to this campaign but also acted as a tool for empowering people now various governments are looking forward to use it. He summarised it as a symbol of new India which is fast emerging under the leadership of PM Modi.
Speaking about the impact of Covid pandemic on digital economy and the road map ahead, Chandrasekhar informed that “The Post COVID world order offers new opportunities to India as the world now looks towards new trusted Global Value chains”. He termed it as a “Y2K type moment”, an inflection point, for the tech Industry in India. He added that the rate of digitization across the globe is increasing at a fast pace and India alone has around 800 million users connected on to the internet. This number is bound to cross the 1 billion mark soon as the Narendra Modi Government aims to achieve universal internet coverage. This shall increase the demand for digital products and services and hence boost the digital economy.
{{/usCountry}}Speaking about the impact of Covid pandemic on digital economy and the road map ahead, Chandrasekhar informed that “The Post COVID world order offers new opportunities to India as the world now looks towards new trusted Global Value chains”. He termed it as a “Y2K type moment”, an inflection point, for the tech Industry in India. He added that the rate of digitization across the globe is increasing at a fast pace and India alone has around 800 million users connected on to the internet. This number is bound to cross the 1 billion mark soon as the Narendra Modi Government aims to achieve universal internet coverage. This shall increase the demand for digital products and services and hence boost the digital economy.
{{/usCountry}}Emphasising upon the important roles of both the ministries he is entrusted with, Chandrasekhar remarked –“Ministry of Electronics and IT as well as Skill Development have a critical role to play as India looks to expand to 1 Trillion Dollar Digital economy over the next 5 years.”
On electronics manufacturing, he mentioned that the government is working on a policy roadmap to develop the overall semi conductors and electronics system design and manufacturing ecosystem that shall position India as a major player in this sector. “We expect to grow this space through policy action “ he added.
Interacting with Virat Bhatia, Managing Director, Apple India, who was moderating the session, Chandrasekhar also informed about the openness that the government has towards consultation with both private and public stakeholders in its policy formulation process. “Consultative approach to policy making is in the DNA of our government. Every policy is driven by twin benefits of consumer’s ease of living and ease of doing business” he added. He assured all the representatives and members of USIBC that “We are open to consultations. We are open to engage with people. We are setting up advisory groups at MeitY bringing all stakeholders – academia, industry, together to guide us through.”
Speaking about the imminent need of skilled persons, he mentioned that the rapid pace of digitization has increased the demand for digital services which has outpaced capacity, leading to an interim shortage of skilled persons. He mentioned that the “ PM has given us a mandate that India should emerge as the skill capital of India”. He also informed that a new approach towards skilling is being worked out with greater impetus on traditional and heritage skills, tighter industry linkage, employability etc so that there is a continuous runway of skilling and upskilling.