The electronics industry is mainly a post- independence phenomenon in the country. It began with radio manufacturing in early fifties of the last century.
The real breakthrough came with the setting up of the Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) in 1950 near Bangalore with an ultimate capacity of 25,000 exchange lines and equal number of instruments. At present it has diversified its production range to meet the needs of the Posts and Telegraphs Dept., Defense, Railways, Overseas Communication Services and Electricity Boards etc.
The range includes automatic telephone switching systems, stranger and cross bars, teleprompter exchanges, long distance transmission systems and electronic test instruments and components. The paid-up capital of the company at present is Rs. 88 crore as against their authorised capital of Rs. 100 crore. The Government holds 76.67 per cent of the equity. Today ITI is the only Indian source for certain leading-edge technologies like SDH on microwave, fibre optic products, etc. and is well ahead of others in the manufacture of Digital Electronic Exchange equipment, VSATs, C-DOT MAX-XL equipment, etc.
The Company has also started providing certain value added services, viz, VSAT and Mobile Radio Trunked Service. The ITI has now seven manufacturing units all over the country: two at Bangalore and one each at Naini, Rae Bareli, Mankapur, Palakkad and Srinagar (J & K).
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The Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL), Bangalore was set up in the public sector in 1956 to fulfill the needs of the electronics in defense services, All India Radio and the Meteorological Department. BEL has been deeply involved in the areas like communications, radar, fire control systems for tanks and various kinds of optical, optronic systems in the strategic sector.
The organisation is collaborating with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in material development, radar and underwater electronics. BEL is collaborating with ISRO to develop GaAs solar cells which are more efficient than the silicon solar cells now used. It has also developed fish finder to help fishermen to locate a shoal of fish accurately. It has also devised an alarm system for unmanned level crossings, a VHF radio-based universal emergency communication system for the railways and energy saver.
The production content of the different units of BEL is as follows: The Bangalore unit produces radars, sonars and communication equipment. Its total turnover was Rs. 684.75 crores in 1997-98 and production value Rs. 240.5 crores. The Ghaziabad unit produces radars, communication equipment and microwave components.
It recorded sales of Rs. 238.67 crores and a production value of Rs. 240.6 crores. The Pune unit turns out X-ray tubes, special batteries, laser range finders and achieved a sales turnover of Rs. 47.54 crores and a production value of Rs. 63 crores. The Panchkula unit manufactures defence communication equipment. Its turnover was 59.8 crores and production value Rs. 60.38 crores.
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The Chennai unit produces tank electronics. Its sales were Rs. 56.1 crores and production value Rs. 68.80 crores. The Hyderabad unit manufactures electronic warfare equipment, its turnover being Rs. 127.49 crores and production value Rs. 128.66 crores in 1997-98. The Kotdwara unit makes telecom equipment.
The turnover of this unit was Rs. 29.77 crores and production value Rs. 23.25 crores. The Machilipatnam unit produces optoelectronic devices achieving a turnover of Rs. 8.31 crores with a production value of Rs. 23.25 crores. The Taloja unit turns out TV glass shells. It recorded a sales turnover of Rs. 51 crores and a production value of Rs. 24.81 crores in 1997-98.
The production value of BEL in 1997-98 was Rs. 1,336 crores against Rs. 1,236 crores in 1996-97. It exported Rs. 42.93 crores worth of electronic goods to Philippines, Nepal, Brazil, Austria, Russia, Singapore, and African countries.
The Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL), Hyderabad, was setup in 1970 with fully indigenous technology. It produces transistorized modular systems for nuclear work and for use in medical, agricultural and industrial fields; components like wire- wound and metal oxode capacitates and wet tantalum capacitates, synch pairs and resistance temperature detectors, analogue computers and on-line digital process control computers. It has developed system for air traffic control automation, CODECT system, tank communication system and police control room automation system in recent years.
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The major achievement in the electronics sector has been the development of the supercomputer Param 10,000 by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). It has capability of 100 billion mathematical calculations per second (100 gigaflops peak). The C-DAC has also developed software for seismic data processing for ONGC.
The Department of Electronics (DoE) has established Electronic Hardware Technology Parks to give more flexibility to entrepreneurs in commer-. cial decisions. The Semiconductors Complex Ltd. in Chandigarh has started manufacturing FAX machines with Rockwell of the U.S. The DoE is funding research in artificial intelligence (AI) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.
It is also trying to develop an expert system for the income-tax department and for formulating the trade policy of the Ministry of Commerce. Expert systems have been developed at the ERSC in Thiruvananthapuram to help farmers in choosing the rice varieties and fertilizers for their fields.
The private sector has over 100 units producing electronic and telecommunication equipment and over 150 produce components. Most of these are concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
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The electronics industry has emerged as a growth sector with an annual growth of more than 20 per cent. It is expected that software exports would soon account for 50 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. There is a good demand abroad for India’s electronic goods and technical manpower. Electronics is undoubtedly the most forward looking fast-moving sector in India today.