To cater to next-generation digital manufacturing and mitigate immediate disabilities of local industries, the government released a “National Strategy on Additive Manufacturing (AM)” or 3D printing that aims to add $2-3 billion to the GDP by 2025.

“The value of precision electronics is high. It is estimated to contribute $2-3 billion in GDP in the coming two-three years,” Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Communications and Railways, said while releasing the strategy.

Under this, the government plans to create 50 India-specific technologies for material, machine, process, and software to make India a 3D-printed design and manufacturing hub.

This will create an ecosystem for creating nearly 100 new start-ups, ten existing and new manufacturing sectors, and one-lakh new skilled manpower besides developing 500 AM products and 50 Indian AM technologies on material, machine, process and software. In addition, awareness for the adoption of AM products to facilitate this growth will be created, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) said.

‘Defined goals’

“We have taken some very clearly defined goals in this strategy and I think that this is a very important characteristic of many programmes which have been defined in the last seven years… With this kind of goal-making approach and collaboration among Centre, State, industry and other stakeholders, I am sure that we will achieve a lot of success through this policy,” Vaishnaw said.

3D printing has a lot of scope in making artificial limbs, stents, dental crowns, parts of automobiles and consumer goods, among others, he said.

AM has the potential to revolutionise India’s manufacturing and industrial production landscape through digital processes, communication, imaging, architecture and engineering. With the release of the Strategy innovation and R & D ecosystem will encourage public-private partnership to transform existing research knowledgebase in these fields, MeitY added.