New Delhi

Government is preparing a new component linked incentive scheme which would look at encouraging production of electronics parts, beside semiconductors, said a senior government official on Tuesday.

“Even as the private sector is stepping up, we hope in MeitY to have a component-linked incentive scheme in the coming months which will assist this movement of making India a Product Nation and increasingly a nation that produces more of its components,” S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), said at a product launch here.

For further applicants who come, they need a scheme and the government does not have any scheme right now. “So we have to create a new scheme,” he said. When asked if the current component incentive scheme will be replaced, he said it will be “partially replaced”.

Local value addition

Speaking at the launch of designed and made in India Milkyway personal computer (PC) tablets, Krishnan said that the government has been talking to industry for design and make in India products and the other focus area has been increasing local value addition.

Designed by VVDN Technologies in collaboration with MediaTek India and CoRover.ai, the AI-enabled, indigenously manufactured Education Tablet is embedded with unique features of repairability and upgradability to address the pressing concerns of the digital divide and the accumulation of electronic refuse in India. Epic Foundation executed a memorandum of understanding with VVDN Technologies and UTL to authorise UTL to manufacture PC tablets under licence from EPIC and VVDN. The intent is to manufacture up to two to three-lakh tablets targeted for supply to state governments in a year.

Virtual assistant

“For connecting the digital divide, we have brought in the start-up – BharatGPT. BharatGPT with Bhashini software from MeitY is being integrated with the product, so for education it makes it easy for students to use it. For example, students can create their own virtual assistant and download the NCERT books,” Ajai Chowdhry, Founder and Chairman, Epic Foundation, told businessline.

Built on Android, Milkyway comes in different variants with 3GB and 4GB RAM, 32GB and 64GB storage, 3 megapixel (MP) front camera and 8MP back camera and will retail at Rs.9,999. Iris Waves will market and provide after sales service for Milkyway, he said.

“Iris has distribution and repair facilities all over the country so they will be taking care of the repairs and all the engineers are being trained to repair at component level, which is possible in this product and not any imported product...fundamentally what we really will be able to do is create jobs for repairers all over the country,” Chowdhry added.