India should get into creating infrastructure to manufacture electronics to meet its strategic as well as civil requirements, said Dr R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Union Government.

“We should go beyond IT software and ITES (where we are doing well) and get into electronic manufacturing. While industry efforts would have commercial intent, the Government should support research and manufacturing in strategic areas as well,” he said.

India cannot afford to miss the nano electronics bus as it has already missed the micro electronics bus, the former Chief of Atomic Energy said while speaking at the three-day, 22nd annual conference of Indian Nuclear Society here today.

Dr Chidambaram said the Centre's of nanoelectronics set up at IIT Bombay and the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore by the Department of Information Technology should be replicated at more places. They have even attracted good faculty from abroad.

He said the instruments building capability in the country was down resulting in imports. Similarly, medical diagnostics and analytical instruments for research were all imported. Hence, there was a need to increase industry-academia interface in electronics and ICT to develop products at affordable costs in the country.

The Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, Dr Srikumar Banerjee, in his address said while India was on par with the advanced countries in electronics during the 1960's it was not the same today. Except for some indigenous development in strategic areas of nuclear and defence, especially since technologies were denied to India, there has been a slide in electronics development.

To revive the electronics sector, he suggested that strategic areas should be the anchor, as competing in entertainment electronics was not practical as competition was too high from foreign players. Computer intensive programmes, medical imaging, climate change, simulators, security systems and cryptology algorithms could be some areas to focus on, he suggested.

Dr V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister in his address said, “We have been importing some strategic electronics due to lack of production facilities. There is a need for an electronic policy to boost domestic infrastructure”.

Speaking on defence electronics, he said high energy laser weapon systems, radars, avionics on a chip, seekers etc. would be future requirements for the country's defence. All these need very high technology calibre and manufacturing base.

The Indian Nuclear Society honoured Dr Baldev Raj, former director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Advanced Research, Kalpakam, with the Homi Bhabha lifetime achievement award. The Industry award went to Bharat Forge, whose Executive Director, Mr Sunil Chaturvedi received it from Mr Banerjee.

soma@thehindu.co.in

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