It is almost universally accepted in today's world that if one would go looking for a single agent that has revolutionised our quality of life, our economy, and every other facet of human activity, one would definitely conclude that this agent is indeed the increasing usage of electronics and the associated technology. It would also follow that this electronics technology holds the key to the future for all emerging economics in the Third world countries including India. It is said that the rate of growth of any country depends entirely on its technology gap.

Electronics technology is acceptedly "the" medium for accelerated growth. It is indeed so for mass education - as has been successfully experimented in India through its TV and Radio coverage, for employment generation in various industries by increasing productivity, for rural development through telecommunication, for improving quality of life and removing hassles in the life of common man by improving and providing faster services, for boosting industrial activity by spawning new products and services, the list is indeed long.

This realisation has come with great force as far as we in India are concerned. The number of progressive steps and open arm policy that the Government of India has been pursuing today bear testimony to this commitment.

Electronics trade and Technology Development Corporation, popularly know as ET & T corporation, has for the past decade been in the thick of this technological upsurge acting as a catalyst in a number of areas. ET & T - a public sector undertaking under the Department of Electronics, has of course a special role to play and is entrusted to do so, in ushering a new technological era in the Indian Industry in general and electronics industry in particular. ET & T has a corporate mission that declares it to be a catalyzing agency for electronics in India, ensuring wide spread availability and usage of electronics and services, supporting the industry with contemporary technology and other inputs. It also consciously pursues its philosophy of giving value for money to the ultimate end user.

ET & T is thus the centre point of interaction between customers in India, the industry, and the ouside world. It is the facilitator that strives to assist all section, as a socially conscious commercial organisation should be doing.

At this stage it would be worthwhile to look back at some of the pioneering roles that ET & T has played and continues to play. It would help appreciate also the role that ET & T prophases to continue to play in future.

When the Government of India decided in 1984 to introduce Television to cover the entire country for speeding up the developmental process, ET & T through one of its unique programmes launched during 1984 generated a high degree of much needed quality and cost consciousness among most of the leading manufacturers of consumer electronics in India. The concept almost started a revolution in consumer electronics and prices of consumer electronic products like Television crashed down to a level that suited the common man's budget.

Under this scheme, known as the MTB scheme ET & T supplied materials in a ready to assemble form at International quality level and at rock-bottom prices to the tiny small and medium scale manufacturers in the country. The technology for assembling the television sets was developed and passed on to the manufacturers. A high level of quality surveillance was adopted by ET & T from component procurement stage on to the last stage of manufacturing. ET & T finally inspected the end product and rendered its Brand Name.

Under this programme ET & T has been nurturing many small scale units spread through out the country. The 36 cms. B&W TV sets brought out under this programme because the largest selling Brand in the country and later went on to capture the export market. In addition to this, under its MTB Programme, ET & T also developed a low cost good quality 51 cms Color TV set so as to put it within the reach of a wider section of the population. By continuous upgradation of the latest technology in TV sets. Today, it has a wide range of TV sets covering many models, and its 36 cms CTV is exported to Europe.

While pursuing this programme ET & T became and continues to be one of the largest buyers of consumer electronics components from manufacturers all over the world thus providing not only inputs to Indian Industry but also valuable business to overseas manufacturers.

The other unique scheme of ET & T has been its People's Computer project.
The Department of Electronics launched an exercise to make available a low cost IBM PC, P C X T compatible system in the country so that there could develop large scale computer culture in the country at all walks of life and industry. As a sequel to this, a series of meetings were held with the major manufacturers of IBM PC X T compatible systems as well as with the manufacturers of peripherals, particularly, Floppy Disk Drives, Monitors and key Boards.

Since no major computer manufacturer was coming forward to spearhead this effort, ET & T took upon itself the task of launching the low-cost computer project, which represents a watershed in the field of computers in India. The objective of the project was to spread the computer culture on a widespread basis by making computers affordable to a wide segment of users including small business houses, professionals like Doctors and Lawyers and even housewives and children.

ET & T's people computer project not only achieved a fair amount of commercial success but was instrumental again in bringing down the prices of computers to affordable level-thus providing a wider market and giving a boost to Indian manufacturing industry.

The computer project of ET&T was the forerunner to similar other related to computer area as well as office automation products such as low-cost FAX machines, cordless Telephones etc.

In order to fully support the system in the field in terms of installation, maintenance and field upgradation, ET&T has set up its own network of After Sales service to provide complete support and service to the user at his doorstep.

In the software field, which has assumed the greatest importance as high potential area, ET&T has signed agreements with world leaders like Micro Soft for MS DOS Operating Systems and with AT&T for UNIX operating systems as well Novell Netware.

In-house software development and export of software has also become a major activity of ET & T. Having a core team of software engineers with wide ranging and diverse experience, ET & T joins hands with many overseas software houses for offshore development, manpower deputation for project work as well as marketing of highly sophisticated software packages outside India.

ET&T manages under its own banner a 100 percent export oriented Software Technology Park at Gandhi Nagar. The park complex has modern communication facilities, core computers and is equipped with a 64 kbps satellite link. This would provide the handshake facilities for many overseas software houses who wish to have tie ups with Indian Software industry which has an acknowledged preeminence in the world today.

ET&T has also explored indigenously available quality application products (both Hardware and Software) in various domains e.g. Educational, Health Care, Networking, CAD (Computer Aided Design) DTP (Desk Top Publishing) Land Records, Bilingual/Multilingual applications, integrated business application (Financial Management, Inventory, Sales Building), Commodity Distribution, Virus Protection, Telex Interfaces and many more. Most of these products are already well groomed into the product list.

Many of these pioneering and constantly evolving strategies of ET&T has helped ET&T create its own niche in the world market. Whether an integrated circuit manufacturing plant established in Pyongyang under UNDP assistance or consumer electronics assembly plants in African countries or simply product exports and software development jobs. ET&T's products and services are today known in countries like USA, UK, Australia, Tanzania, Morocco, Mauritius, Muscat, Bangladesh, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, etc.

Education and training has been one of ET&T's main contributions to the Indian Electronic scene. Be it video or computer literacy. ET&T produces and distributes countrywide educational video programmes on topics covering social education, vocational healthcare, literacy etc. ET&T has been conducting various computer-training programmes for the spread of computer literacy. This will enable greatly to fill the gap with respect to availability of skilled manpower in computer field in line with the acknowledge Government policy.

ET&T believes that any development work in India even in its chosen field can only be achieved through technical as well as financial links built with the outside world. A matching of strengths and resources is important.

With this in view ET&T extends cooperation including joint venture participation with intending overseas entrepreneurs at mutually acceptable terms and conditions.

India offers exciting opportunities for investment and partnership in the wake of wide ranging liberalisation moves announced by the Government. ET&T extends its hands and cooperation towards realising these objectives. With its expertise of Government’s rules and obligations market knowledge, technical expertise manifested by its large force of professionals in the field of electronics, ET&T provides the right interface between India and other countries.