Capability to design in India is a key factor to achieve the ‘Make in India’ goal and Tamil Nadu’sstrong presence in R&D should be utilised well, said Kumud Srinivasan, President, Intel India.

Tamil Nadu has a holistic ecosystem consisting of high-end skills, start-ups, hardware design companies, system integrators and OEMs and ODMs. This makes the State an R&D hub. The good ecosystem could pave the way for devices made in Tamil Nadu, she told a panel discussion on Tamil Nadu - Global Manufacturing Hub and Investment Opportunities for IT Hardware and Electronics Industry.

Strong hub Srinivasan said that R&D is the backbone of ‘Make in India’. Countries that have a strong R&D hub see interesting partnerships between R&D centres and governments in areas like Intellectual Property protection and ease of doing business, she said.

Alok Ohrie, President and Managing Director, Dell India Pvt Ltd, said that the company’s manufacturing plant at Sriperumbudur, functioning since 2007, produces nearly 3 million personal computers a year.

However, it is not fully utilised. This is not unique only to Dell but with every other competitor.

They will also say that their factories are under-utilised, which shows that there is spare capacity.

The under-utilisation also shows that the local demand has not caught up to the desired levels. This means that affordability of these products remains a challenge.

If affordability is taken care of, there will be more demand for the products from these factories. The remaining capacity can always be used for exports to countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and West Asia.

Differential duty The government has allowed differential duty benefit for tablets and smart phones. If the same is extended to PCs, notebooks and servers, it can make a huge difference to IT infrastructure, which is so critical to India. To achieve the vision of Digital India, the country needs huge IT infrastructure like servers and storage.

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