The government is stitching up a plan to persuade the medical devices industry to Make in India, along the lines of telecom and electronics, seeking to cut reliance on imports and lower costs.
Niti Aayog, the government’s think tank, has started work on the plan, which comes as the US spars with India over price restrain imposed on medical devices to make them affordable.
A senior government official told ET, “the Aayog will soon come out with a roadmap to promote development of medical devices under the Make in India initiative."
The mega plan is to ultimately make India a manufacturing hub for medical devices of international standards that caters to the domestic and overseas markets.
At first, the products would be diagnostic devices to screen for cancer and heart diseases and later pacemakers, ventilators, dialysis machines and CT scanners, among others, would be added.
The plan being considered for medical devices is similar to the incentive package that provides capital subsidy of up to 25% for the electronics industry and has helped boost local production of mobiles in the country.
India’s medical devices market is the fourth largest in Asia — after Japan, China and South Korea — at over $10 billion and is projected to grow to $50 billion by 2025.
Currently, India has 750-800 medical device manufacturers, with an average investment of Rs 170-200 million and an average turnover of Rs 450-500 million.
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