2025 to be India’s year in semiconductors and data protection: Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

India’s digital personal data protection (DPDP) rules will also come into effect in 2025, by July, the minister said.

The safety of railway operations is a prime concern and will get over ₹1 trillion investment, more than a third of its total annual capex allotment, over the next few years. Installation of the Kavach train protection system on the entire railway network will be completed in six years. Edited excerpts:

What’s been the industry feedback on DPDP rules? Do you foresee challenges in implementation, for instance, for age-gating?

About 95% have been very positive, the balance may seek some tweaks here or there. This is the first time we are attempting a total digital implementation. So, our legal fraternity, our users and the data fiduciaries are more or less aligned. But starting something totally in a digital way of doing things – that has its own sets of challenges, which we would like to address, and we’ve prepared a lot for it, which is why it took one full year to come out with the rules – they could have been published even eight months back.

Tokenisation for age-gating is a first, an experiment that no other country has done. Here, personal information does not get transferred, which is why we did it in Aadhaar two-and-a-half years ago. It was effective and no legal or technical challenges emerged. We’ll probably take the lead (in age-gating) and we’ll probably be able to evolve a much better solution than what, let’s say, Australia or other countries, have attempted. The rules and the act will also evolve with technology.

Would blacklisting or whitelisting countries for data localisation be an option? Are we looking at signing data-access treaties with other jurisdictions?

There will be a sectoral approach. There will be certain sectors which will have special requirements and will be narrowly defined. For example, for financial services, the RBI already has data localisation requirements since 2018. For instance, healthcare will require localisation. We have created a committee which will examine all the requests which come from various sectors, will consult the industry and hence prevent any disruption.

Global experience

The global experiences of that kind of approach – of a whitelist or a blacklist – those things don’t work. A digital economy requires a totally new architecture, unlike physical goods, where the borders and customs and ports and access can be clearly defined. It requires a totally different type of approach. That is why we are attempting an approach which moves away from the concepts of blacklisting and whitelisting. It basically looks at very narrow, sectoral, focused interventions.

By when do you intend to notify the rules? How much time will you give the industry for implementation?

We may present it in Parliament in the second part of the Budget session and it can start functioning in July. We’ll give a range (for implementation). Many industry participants want it to be implemented immediately because that gives them the legal power of processing data of citizens in many other countries. But we want to be very flexible and pragmatic in this. The outer limit can be two years because there are MSMEs and smaller organisations that will take time to adhere… Our approach is pragmatism, simplicity and balance between innovation and regulation.

What will be the focus areas of the ₹25,000- ₹30,000 crore components manufacturing incentive scheme that the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) is working on?

We will focus on large volume components like PCBs (printed circuit boards), lenses and camera modules so that our domestic demand can be met and we can also become a major exporter. We have got very extensive consultations with the industry, fully onboarding the industry requirements, and we are bringing it in a very nuanced way. So it will be announced very soon, hopefully in the budget, or even before it. Our approach is that now that the industry has reached a level, deepen it further. It won’t be appropriate for me to discuss the numbers at this point.

Will 2025 be India’s year of semiconductors?

Yes, we’ll have the first made-in-India chip rolling out in August, which will be very satisfying, three years after starting the project. Micron will be ready and the Tatas will be ready with their pilot plant. The other projects are progressing very well, too. Companies are now very aggressively moving towards becoming product companies, which was the biggest challenge for our country for many years. Now, the ecosystem is getting developed and there is significant local demand because of electronics manufacturing.

When we started, getting the ecosystem was the most difficult part and we were asked whether we would be able to construct a fab. Those questions are behind us. Now, we’re being asked about the level of demand in 2030

Will there be any improvements in the ISM (India Semiconductor Mission) 2.0 scheme, which is being pegged at $15 billion? Will there be any improvements in the scheme? How will startups be accommodated?

People see India as the next semiconductor nation. In a few years from now, we should be in the league of Japan, China, the US, South Korea, and Taiwan. So, ISM 2.0 will have lots of focus on encouraging the ecosystem players to set up base in India and manufacture different components and equipment.

We already have good success in Applied Materials, which has set up its first plant in Bengaluru, and other players also want to come. So, in a sense, get all parts of the semiconductor value chain – design, fabrication ATMP – and then final use in different products.

Products focus

We will also focus on some products which we develop over three to five years and be major players in those products. We want to promote Indian players because they have stood the most difficult time. When we started, getting the ecosystem was the most difficult part and we were asked whether we would be able to construct a fab.

Those questions are behind us. Now, we’re being asked about the level of demand in 2030 and whether industry can manufacture those chemicals in collaboration with someone in India. So, our focus will be on the ecosystem, talent, the value chain and planning for the next 20 years.

What will be the direction for modernising Semiconductor Labs (SCL) in Mohali?

One, SCL must meet the requirements of our defence and strategic sectors. Two, it must scale up production, and three, it must modernise technology. A phased upgradation programme has been worked with by the team of SCL towards effectively a commercial fab with a lot of focus on R&D.

When will regular train services between Jammu and Kashmir start and how do the new train coach designs address passenger comfort and accessibility in cold weather?

Tests on the Jammu-Kashmir section have been completed, and the railways is studying the results of the data… and trying to see that everything is considered, every risk is accounted for. All those things are getting properly, very scientifically checked. We want to leave no open matter out there. That is why we have been very meticulous in this.

The railways need to augment its capacity to meet demand and Vande Bharat trains would help in this regard. The railways carried 700 crore passengers in FY23… Our target is that we should have the capacity to carry 1,000 crore passengers in a few years

The train is ready and very soon we will start the service. The train has been designed to withstand temperatures up to minus-20 degrees Celsius. Maintaining electronic components to withstand such temperatures and function has been a challenge, and this has been ensured so that services can move smoothly, irrespective of the climatic conditions.

Vande Bharat trains are a success story of the railways. What is the plan for these trains?

We have 136 Vande Bharat train services across the country now. Practically every state is covered now, including the northeast, Himachal and now, Jammu and Kashmir. The trains have been received very well by travellers and overall occupancy is more than 100%, with certain sectors extremely popular. In the Kerala sector, occupancy in Vande Bharat trains is of the order of 180%, which has pushed it to a 20-coach version of this train in Kerala.

Apart from Kerala, the train service had high demand on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai sector, the Chennai-Bangalore sector, and the Patna-Kolkata sector. And despite longer trains, Vande Bharat trains have not compromised on speed. A sleeper version of this train service would also be rolled out soon. Apart from this, a new version 2 of Amrit Bharat trains, meant for low- and middle-income families is ready. This will provide ergonomic travel experience at economic pricing.

Will Vande Bharat trains be exported and will they replace existing trains used by the railways?

The experience provided by Vande Bharat and Amrit Bharat trains has attracted global interest as Malaysia wants these trains and so does Chile, and earlier, even Canada wanted these trains. But exports will start later.

First, we want to cater to local demand that is very high and meet our own aspirations. We are increasing the capacity to produce these trains with the addition of two new players – the BHEL-Titagarh joint venture and the RVNL-Russian entity JV Kinet, which will make sleeper versions of Vande Bharat. In addition, the railway manufacturing units are already making these trains.

Passenger targets

The railways has a very large fleet and to replace all trains with the Vande Bharat version would take decades. The railways need to augment its capacity to meet demand and Vande Bharat trains would help in this regard. The railways carried 700 crore passengers in FY23, and this year will carry about 750 crore passengers.

Our target is that we should have the capacity to carry 1,000 crore passengers in a few years from now and provide good quality travel experience to the poorest of the poor and the middle classes. We are targeting services for low-income, middle-income families. The upper middle- and upper-income category people can always take flights.

If the railways is focused on servicing the poorest of the poor, should concession schemes be reinstated?

The railways is already providing 55% concession on fares. If the cost of providing a service is ₹100, we are charging just about ₹45. Last year (2022-23), the railways provided ₹59,000 crore as subsidy.

Will the speed of new-generation trains be increased beyond the tested 180 km/hour?

Yes, we will be going beyond that (180 km/hr). On the surface, we will be limiting our speed to 160 km/hr because the challenges are huge. There are people coming onto the tracks. There are cattle coming onto the tracks. There are tracks which are old. We are upgrading. So far, we have upgraded about 31,000 km of the total 65,000 route km. We need to upgrade a lot more and we are focusing our attention towards that.

Will upgrading of the tracks come along with equipping the entire network with the indigenously designed automatic train protection (ATP) system – Kavach – that will help in reducing train accidents?

We started with a newer version of Kavach 4.0 in July last year after two and half years of research and use-case tests. And so far, we have covered 5,000 track km with Kavach. We should not look at Kavach as just one device. Along with installing Kavach devices on locos, we have to set up telecom towers every five km or three km to make radio signals clearer. An optical fibre network has to be established and at each station, data centres have to be created. But the good part is that all the hardware required for the Kavach system is being made in India. It took us about two and a half years to perfect it. But this milestone has been reached much faster than Europeans or Japanese who took more than 20 years to perfect ATP and roll them out on their networks. We intend to cover the entire railway network with the Kavach system in six years.

What is the progress on the bullet train project?

The progress is superb. We have completed work on a 349 km stretch. The work on viaducts and piers has been completed and the river bridges are nearing completion. All the stations in the Gujarat section are reaching their completion now. The undersea tunnel in the Maharashtra leg is also being completed very fast. And rolling stock for the project would be finalised soon.

We have to continuously keep our focus on safety, continuously keep our focus on improving the network further. That’s what we are doing.

The progress on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project has given us confidence to develop the technology and design and make the bullet train indigenously. We are sure to make progress on that in the coming years.

What are the plans to make train journeys safer, given the spate of major and minor accidents at regular intervals in the past few months?

The statistics clearly show that the number of accidents has come down from a level of 171 before 2014 to just about 30. Derailments have also fallen from 540 a year to just about 39 now.

We have to continuously keep our focus on safety, continuously keep our focus on improving the network further. That’s what we are doing. We are spending ₹1.08 trillion in safety works of the railways in FY25 and this level of support will continue to be provided in the coming years…

This level of investment will basically go towards track upgradation, track renewal, improving the quality of the ballast, improving the quality of the signaling equipment, improving the installation of Kavach, improving the reliability of assets, and making sure the locomotives have much better control systems. Every part of the chain will be covered.

Has the idea of privatisation in the railways, particularly privately run passenger train services, been dropped completely?

Private passenger train service has not worked globally. Which private sector [company] will come to operate train services at 50% loss? But we have seen the role played by the private sector in the Indian railways differently. Their role is already very big in the railways. Entire equipment manufacturing is private, construction works are private, and operations and maintenance have huge potential for private sector participation. We have to see that the multiplier effect of railways capex investment is much higher at four or five times the government investment.