Supply-chain resilience has become a strategic imperative. Discuss India's efforts to build an electronics component ecosystem in this context.

Supply-chain resilience means keeping production going when foreign supply is disrupted. India's electronics growth has been assembly-led, and domestic value addition is only about 18–20% [4]. A domestic component base is therefore both an economic need and a strategic one.

Why components are central to resilience

• Relying on imported inputs from a few countries exposes final assembly to geopolitical shocks. The Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS) aims to make India Atmanirbhar in the electronics supply chain [2].
• NITI Aayog targets $500 bn of electronics production by FY30, of which $150 bn should be components [5].

India's efforts

• Scheme design improved: SPECS (2020) paid a 25% capital subsidy. ECMS pays turnover-linked incentives only after production starts, so public money follows output [6][1].
• ECMS (2025): approved on 28 March 2025 with an outlay of ₹22,919 crore over 6 years. Its targets are ₹59,350 crore of investment and 91,600 direct jobs [2]. The outlay was raised to ₹40,000 crore in Budget 2026–27 [3].
• Strong industry response: the scheme received 249 applications worth ₹1,15,351 crore [7]. So far 118 projects have been approved, with ₹77,051 crore committed, about 30% above the investment target [1].
• Moving upstream: approvals include copper foil (₹3,546 crore, Amreli, Gujarat), copper clad laminates for PCBs, battery cells and capital equipment [1].
• Federal spread: projects are located in 15 States, which encourages States to compete for electronics clusters [3].

Gaps and constraints

• Approved ≠ producing: only 38 plants had started production by August 2026 [3]. ECMS gets just ₹1,500 crore in Budget 2026–27 [6].
• PLI warning: IT Hardware PLI 2.0 met only about 20% of its investment target and 3% of its production target [6].
• Cost gap: import duties on inputs make Indian components costlier. NITI Aayog recommends tariff rationalisation [5].
• Jobs shortfall: 74,628 direct jobs are projected, against a target of 91,600 [3][2].

Way forward

• MeitY should publish plant-by-plant data on production start dates, output and incentives paid.
• Lower duties on component inputs to narrow the cost gap [5].
• Judge success by value addition and NITI Aayog's component target, not by the number of approvals [4][5].
• Use screened foreign technology partnerships and skilling to close gaps in know-how.

In sum, ECMS marks a shift from assembly towards building the deeper layers of the value chain. Its design is sound. Its success depends on approved projects actually producing and on plants that can compete once the subsidy ends. Meeting NITI Aayog's component target would turn self-reliance into real supply-chain resilience, in line with Atmanirbhar Bharat.