While the India Semiconductor Association (ISA) wants to ensure that the taskforce recommendations on ESDM (Electronic System Design and Manufacturing) evolve into policy formulations, the industry body is also keen on pushing ahead with research.

Speaking to Business Line , Dr Pradip K. Dutta, who has taken over as the new chairman of the ISA for 2011-12, said, “Our primary focus has so far been the growth of the industry but I fully agree that we need to pay close attention to the research aspect as well.”

One of the areas involved could be nanotech and Dr Dutta said that he expected to see some funding support from the Government in early stage research. “I am hopeful some of that will be directed in the area of nanotech.”

One of Dr Dutta's predecessors, Mr B.V. Naidu, had recently opined that the STPI could promote electronics and Dr Dutta is in agreement with this.

“We can expand the scope of STPI in two ways. It can be deployed beyond IT/ITES into ESDM sector and chartered beyond export promotion into growth of the domestic sector.”

Much of the focus of the ISA stems from the fact that semiconductors will be a $400-billion industry by 2020 and this is one of the reasons why the ISA is working very closely with the DIT (Department of Information Technology), DoT (Department of Telecommunication) and other Government bodies.

“We are simply lining up the dots to get connected. Once the taskforce recommendations translate into draft policy recommendations and then mature into hard policies for the sector, we will automatically see overt promotion of this industry.

“ISA is working on this actively and we hope to showcase the strength of ESDM industry in a major way at some point of time this year through a knowledge convention.”

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