The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a budget of Rs 76,000 crore for designing and manufacturing semiconductor chips in India. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said the Cabinet sanctioned Rs76,000 crore for the ambitious project, titled Programme for Development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystem, to be spent over a span of six years According to a statement by the government, the project will have a multiplier effect across different sectors and will help in deeper integration to the global value chain.
The Union Cabinet’s decision on designing and manufacturing semiconductor chips in India would encourage research and innovation, boost manufacturing and help fulfil the dream of Atmanirbhar Bharat, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
PM Modi tweeted, “Today’s Cabinet decision on semi-conductors will encourage research and innovation in the sector. It will also boost manufacturing and thus strengthen the dream of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat.”
Elaborating on the scheme, Union Minister for Telecom and Information Technology (IT) Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a historic decision in the field of electronics in which the development of a complete ecosystem could take place within the country including design, fabrication, testing and packaging. It would take the investment of Rs 76,000 crore. Today we have reached US$75 billion in electronics manufacturing in 7 years. With the pace that we are moving at, in the next six years, we will reach US$300 billion in electronics manufacturing.”
Apart from this, the Union I&B Minister said that Cabinet has approved reimbursement of Rs 1,300 crore on digital transactions using UPI and Rupay debit cards. “A scheme has been approved to provide incentives to encourage digital transactions through RuPay Debit Card and BHIM UPI of small amounts. It will incur an expense of around Rs 1,300 crore,” Thakur said.
Explaining the scheme further, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that the government will reimburse transaction charges levied on digital payments made by persons to the merchant as part of the merchant discount rate (MDR). “In the coming one year…the government will invest around Rs 1,300 crore so that more and more people move towards digital payments,” Vaishnaw said. He also said that 423 crore digital transactions valued at Rs 7.56 lakh crore took place in November.
Another scheme approved by the Cabinet is the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana for 2021-26. The scheme is said to benefit to about 22 lakh farmers, including 2.5 lakh SC and 2 lakh ST farmers.
In order to reduce India’s dependence on China, the government in March 2020 announced a scheme with an aim to give companies incentives on incremental sales from products manufactured in domestic units. On 11 November 2020, the Union Cabinet had approved the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for 10 sectors. The list included pharmaceuticals, automobiles and auto components, telecom and networking products, advanced chemistry cell battery, textile, food products, solar modules, white goods, and specialty steel.
The PLI scheme, according to the government, “will make Indian manufacturers globally competitive, attract investment in the areas of core competency and cutting-edge technology, ensure efficiencies, create economies of scale, enhance exports, and make India an integral part of the global supply chain.”
ELECTORAL REFORMS
In a step taken towards electoral reforms, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is learnt to have cleared a bill on electoral reforms, including allowing the Election Commission to seed Aadhaar number with electoral rolls on a voluntary basis. According to the bill cleared by the Cabinet, the electoral law will be made “gender neutral” for service voters. Another provision of the bill will allow the youth to enrol as voters on four different dates every year; as of now those turning 18 on or before 1 January of every year are only allowed to register as voters.