Focus is on ramping up physical, digital and social infrastructure, says Ashwini Vaishnaw
India's growth is driven by investment in infrastructure, inclusive development, manufacturing, and simplification of laws, said Ashwini Vaishnaw, union minister for electronics and information technology, information and broadcasting, and railways. When it comes to infrastructure, the government is investing not just in physical and digital assets but social resources as well, he said at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum on Saturday.
Medical colleges for example have nearly doubled to 706 in the last 10 years, while the number of premier All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have gone to 22 from seven, he said Vaishnaw.
On the manufacturing side of things, a key driver of new jobs, Vaishnaw said the government is focusing on creating new industries through programmes such as production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes. The PLI for mobile phone manufacturing has generated 1.2 million direct and indirect jobs in the past decade, he said. The total production value of mobile phones manufactured in India has risen from $2.3 billion in 2014 to $50 billion in 2024, he said.
«This year, Apple will be manufacturing their latest model in India. The value of electronics manufacturing in India had increased to $105 billion as of 2022-23, up from $29 billion in 2013-14,» the minister said. «We are preparing a programme where the component ecosystem can now expand in India in the same way as electronics and mobile manufacturing has expanded.»
The country has achieved significant scale in mobile phone
