India’s Draft Policy on Electronics 2018

The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has released a draft National Policy on Electronics 2018 (NPE 2018) on 10 October. It underlines the high priority that the Government of lndia attaches to the electronics industry, which is also an important pillar of both the 'Make in India' and 'Digital India' programmes.

Among other things, the NPE 2018 envisages new provisions for developing and mandating standards. Chapter 5 of the draft policy states the following plans:

• Establish Standards setting body in MeitY to develop standards for Electronics (including Components as well as Fabless Industry), IT, e-Governance, etc.
• Set up an institutional mechanism within MeitY for mandating compliance to standards for electronics products.
• Create/ upgrade Lab infrastructure/ capacity for testing of electronic goods, including cyber security                                          

The Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) invites all members of the Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure to send in comments on the draft policy until Monday 22 October 2018. A consolidated response on behalf of the German members of the Working Group will then be submitted to the Government of India.