Reports suggest that the Government of India has released a national strategy for additive manufacturing (commonly known as 3D printing) to boost collaboration between academia, government and industry with the goal of making India a global hub for design, development and deployment of 3D printing.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology says, “we have taken some very clearly defined goals in this strategy. We are targeting 50 India specific technologies, 100 new start-ups, 500 products, 10 existing and new manufacturing sectors and one lakh new skilled manpower. We hope additive manufacturing becomes a major export item in the coming years.”

The strategy has been released after extensive consultation with industry leaders and subject experts.

Ajay Sawhney, secretary, MeitY says, “at this stage the segment is wide open. Without an effort to build indigenous strength can result in a situation where material, printers and design will continue to come from outside and the country ends up paying large amounts of royalty to foreign companies. If we are able to build design capability in this segment, it will fetch royalty repeatedly.”

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state, MeitY says, “this document a leap into a very important strategic area. India has missed the bus on high precision manufacturing But we are at the same stage as the rest of the world in this sector. Additive manufacturing plays to the strengths that India has, which is software, electronics, ESDM and artificial intelligence (AI).”

Swapnil Sansare, founder and chief innovation officer, Divide by Zero Technologies says, “right now 80-85percent of the equipment used in 3D printing machines and materials is imported. Growth will only happen if we start making it here. If the government puts effort into supporting manufacturing of local 3d printing machines and materials the adoption rate will dramatically improve.”

Accrding to the reports, one of the objectives of the strategy is to enhance India's position in the global 3d manufacturing landscape achieve a market share of five percent and contribute nearly $1 billion to the GDP by 2025.

The global 3D printing products and services market was valued at $12.6 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 percent between 2020 and 2023, as per reports.