India is one of the fastest growing markets for electronics. The demand is projected to reach USD 400 Billion by 2020. Government of India (GoI) has launched the National Policy on Electronics 2012 (NPE 12) with the vision to make India a globally competitive destination for Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) for both domestic as well as to serve the International market. The objectives of the Policy include significantly enhancing the availability of skilled manpower in the ESDM sector. Besides, India has large young talent and low wage costs.

The National Skill Development Policy which targets skilling of 500 million persons by 2022 has set a target for the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) to skill 10 million persons by 2022 in the domain of Electronics & ICT. 

The NPE 2012 envisages employment for about 28 million at various levels. The Electronics Manufacturing sector has a lot of potential for large-scale employment of ITI graduates, Diploma holders, etc. Further, semi-skilled persons with appropriate training can also be employed/made readily employable. However, the present education/skill development system at both formal as well as non-formal level is not vibrant enough to meet the emerging requirement of the ESDM sector. Hence, it is essential for the Government to intervene and create an enabling environment for increasing the numbers of skill providers (both in public and private domain) to address the emerging human resource requirements for ESDM sector.

Keeping the above in view, the Government has launched two schemes for facilitating skill development in ESDM sector focussing on students/school drop-outs at 9-10^th standard onwards, ITI, Diploma, Non-engineering graduates, unemployed youth, etc. (in-line with NVEQF) to increase their employability to work in ‘Manufacturing’ and ‘Service support’ functions. These schemes will run concurrently and are:

1. Scheme for Financial Assistance to select 06 (six) States/UTs for Skill Development in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector.
2. Skill Development in ESDM for Digital India (for the rest of the country)

The instant schemes are an initiative which aims at facilitating creation of an eco-system of Skill Development in ESDM sector in the country to meet the emerging requirements of skilled human resource in this sector.

The main features are:

1. The schemes are targeted to cover  4,18,000 candidates in all the States/UTs
2. The total Grant-in-Aid id Rs 455 crores (approx) and the total outlay for both the schemes is Rs 524 c