Budget 2023: IT ministry receives a 40% hike in allocation on semiconductor push

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With a number of policies for the digital sphere on the anvil, and to bolster initiatives like that of Make-in-India semiconductors, the government has increased the budget estimate for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to Rs 16, 549.04 crore from the Rs 11,719.95 crore revised estimate of 2022-23, translating to a 40 percent increase.

The actual allocation for the period of 2021-22 stood at Rs 8,118.65 crore, making this year's budget estimate nearly double of what it was two years back.

Majority of the Rs 16,549.04 crore budget estimate, around Rs 12,440 crore, has been reserved for schemes and projects under the ministry such as Digital India Programme, Modified Programme for Development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystem in India and so on.

What is notable is that the Digital India Programme has been given a reduced budget estimate for this year when compared to the 2022-23 revised estimate. While in 2022-23, the revised estimate for Digital India stood at Rs 7,603 crore for Budget 2023-24, the estimate was lowered to Rs 4,795 crore.

It is the semiconductor mission that has received a massive budget allocation for this year.

The Modified Programme for Development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystem in India, which includes activities such as semiconductor testing, scheme for setting up semiconductor fabs, and design-linked incentives scheme, has been allocated Rs 3,000 crore - up from Rs 200 crore in the revised budget estimate last year.

The Centre's concentration on the semiconductor area can also be found in the increased budget estimate for Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL). While the revised budget estimate for SCL in FY22-23 was Rs 320 crore, in this year's budget it was increased to Rs 533 crore.

Additionally, production-linked incentive for large scale electronic manufacturing also received a whopping Rs 4,499.04 crore estimate in this year's budget; and PLI for IT hardware received a Rs 146 crore estimate.

Cybersecurity

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the nodal agency of the government for responding to cybersecurity incidents, also received a increased estimate in this year's budget - from Rs 180 crore in FY22-23 to Rs 225 crore this year.

Another Rs 400 crore was allocated under a cyber security program under the Digital India scheme.

These allocations come after the country faced some of its worst cyber attacks  in 2022. Last year, in November, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences faced a massive ransomware attack that crippled, not only its digital services but also academic processes.

Post that, the government has been issuing multiple cyber security advisories warning employees of existing threats to their systems, the ways they can prevent cyber attacks and so on.

UIDAI and other MeitY bodies

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the nodal body under the IT ministry for Aadhaar, has been given a budget estimate for Rs 940 crore for FY23-24, down from Rs 1,110 crore in the revised estimate for FY22-23.

National Informatics Centre, which handles the IT infrastructure of the government, received a 4.36 percent increase in estimate in this year's budget, when compared to the revised estimate of FY22-23.

While in FY22-23, the revised estimate stood at Rs 1,463.45 crore, in this year's budget, the estimate was set at Rs 1,527.26 crore.

Moneycontrol had earlier reported how the NIC has been facing severe budget and personnel crunch and that it has been facing a lot of difficulties in maintaining the government's mammoth IT infrastructure with these scant resources.