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Calcutta, Feb. 3: Bengal has initiated the process of identifying land to set up electronics manufacturing clusters at Naihati and Falta.
The state government has identified a 70-acre plot in Naihati (North 24-Parganas), while it is looking to earmark land for a similar facility at Falta.
The central government will provide financial assistance to the state under a scheme that plans to build 200 such clusters in India. The state government will provide a detailed project report in three months and appoint a consultant during the period.
The national policy on electronics has set a target to achieve a turnover of $400 billion and create job opportunities for 28 million by 2020.
According to the central department of electronics and information technology, demand for hardware products will grow to $400 billion in 2020 from $45 billion in 2009. However, production is projected to rise to only $104 billion by that year, thereby creating a demand-supply mismatch of $296 billion.
“There is a shortfall in the manufacturing of electronic goods. Recreating infrastructure similar to those already established in places such as Taiwan will be difficult for hardware manufacturing. Margins are small as well. But India is progressing in electronic system design which has registered about 15 per cent growth last year,” a state government official said.
“We hope to submit a detailed project report soon and start our work in this financial year. Process is on to select a consultant and transaction advisers. This will be a PPP (public private partnership) project. We plan to seek expert advice from industry bodies and the Indian Semi-Conductor Association. The idea is to create not isolated units in the cluster, but a synergy for the entire value chain for the final product,” the official said.
The union government will provide financial assistance to a special purpose vehicle to implement the project. Assistance will be provided for about 50 per cent of the project cost up to Rs 50 crore for every 100 acres for greenfield projects. For brownfield clusters, the assistance will be restricted to 75 per cent of the project cost up to Rs 50 crore.
Bengal’s new IT policy unveiled last year has a target to build 15 such clusters in five years, through central assistance or through state funding.
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