The RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) market scenario in India is currently at embryonic stage.

In April 2005, the RFID Association of India was founded to promote the adoption and awareness of RFID technology, standards and applications across industry, government and academia in India. Industry analysts expect the RFID market will grow to $ 30 million by 2009. Gemini Traze RFID Pvt. Ltd is establishing Indias first RFID tag manufacturing facility at the Seriperumbudur electronic park in Chennai. It plans to roll out 45 million ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags annually, which can be scaled up to 100 million, he said. He is positive that this would slash the cost of RFID tags by a whopping 60 percent. India is a hot destination as of now and the whole world has its eyes set on it. With its economy growing like never before it is offering immense opportunities for everybody so how could RFID stay behind. Slowly and steadily RFID is penetrating India and from defense sector to corporate sector, even farmers are making use of it. Mahindra & Mahindra, an automobile company in the country was one of the early adopters of RFID and now it has pressed the pedal in full for utilizing it in areas ranging from warehousing to vendor tracking. Even the government of India is looking for RFID deployment and will be conducting RFID tests for cold chain management. Corporate Sector has been testing RFID in a number of areas such as library management and document management. With India being an agricultural economy Indian farmers are keeping a track of their cattle using RFID. TCS is also into negotiations for deploying RFID for seven million cattle in the state of Gujarat. The booming retail sector in the country is too eyeing RFID implementation. Realizing the potential of RFID in India Gemini Traze has gone ahead and set up the first RFID plant in the country. One of the reasons for the adoption of this technology in the country is the falling costs and secondly the semiconductor policy of the government is favoring it. One can now certainly predict boom time for RFID in India. RFID offers tremendous potential for catalyzing Indias growth and development. With the semiconductor industry and mobile communication technology maturing, radio frequency identification (RFID) is expected to enter the market in a big way. As RFID grows at a rapid pace across the world, Indian software firms are targeting the global market in retail, logistics and manufacturing. Major

players like Wipro, Infosys and Patni Computers had already started research and development pilot projects to develop solutions for vehicle tracking, animal tracking, retail automation and the like. There is a big opportunity in the development and implementation of RFID-based software solutions for the Indian software industry. The greatest opportunity will be the middleware segment, where IT companies can develop software to pick up RFID data, and also work on network security. The most promising vertical market for RFID in India will be the retail segment, which is projected to grow at 36 percent by end of 2009. Other promising verticals are pharmaceutical, logistics and security. These markets represent an emerging battlefield for IT firms and RFID tag and reader manufacturers. Manufacturing sector has the potential to leapfrog to the next level of efficiency in managing supply chains and to start competing more effectively with the help of RFID. In the pharmaceutical sector, RFID can improve raw material tracking for the manufacturing audit trail right from the factory floor, to avoid counterfeiting of drugs and speed up clinical trials. RFID will provide better visibility to the movement of shipments, asset tracking (trucks, containers and so on), improve track and trace capabilities and reduce or eliminate processes related to manual scanning and shipment errors. Pilot projects of Indian companiessuch as Pantaloon, Madura Garments and Ashok Leyland are almost in the final stage. One example is the pilot at Pantaloons Tarapur warehouse with 1,000 tags.
RFID in Retail and Manufacturing
Company Pantaloon RFID application Pilot at its Tarapur warehouse with 1,000 tags. Application developed by Wipro Infotech is integrated with the Oracle 10g database and middleware Tags garments going to its central warehouse Goal To improve the efficiency of its supply chain and introduce item-level tagging for identification along with RFID hardware Benefits

Time saved in scanning items is 80% Real time visibility of items at all the stages of SC up by 98% Improved accuracy

Madura Garments

Will implement RFID at the retail showroom as a proof of concept

Increased sales Better labour utilisation Easy stock taking Productivity

enhanced

Ashok Leyland

Pilot project with HP at its production development area. RFID is being used in the enginetesting area

Processing engine information more efficiently

Automated process Cost reduction Enhanced errorproofing

However, the transformative potential of RFID cannot be taken for granted, as there are many challenges en route. The cost of investment in RFID deploymentwhich ranges from between $1 million and $20 million for basic and high-end RFID taggingwill be the major deterrent. Another stumbling block in adoption of the RFID in India will be the high price of RFID tags and readers, which can range from $200 to several thousand dollars. Additional hurdles included breach of privacy issues and low RFID awareness.