India’s rapidly expanding electronics market—now the third-largest generator of e-waste globally—is facing a mounting sustainability challenge. Over 80% of the country’s electronic waste is still processed informally, often in unsafe backyard operations that expose workers to toxic metals and release pollutants into surrounding communities.
Against this backdrop, the Government of India, in partnership with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has launched a five-year initiative to transition the electronics sector toward a circular economy model.
The project, implemented through the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), seeks to embed circularity principles across the value chain—from product design to recycling. It will focus on creating reusable, repairable, and resource-efficient products while formalizing the recycling ecosystem to ensure environmental safety and economic inclusion.
India generated roughly 1.1 million tonnes of e-waste in 2023, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), a figure expected to grow 30% annually with the proliferation of smartphones, appliances, and consumer electronics. Yet, formal collection and recycling channels capture only a fraction of this waste. Informal processing—often involving open burning or acid leaching—dominates the market, causing significant contamination of soil, water, and air.
While India introduced E-Waste Management Rules (2016, updated 2022) mandating extended producer responsibility (EPR), enforcement remains inconsistent. The gap between policy ambition and implementation capacity has allowed unregistered operators to thrive. By integrating UNDP and GEF expertise, the new initiative aims to strengthen regulatory frameworks and establish standardized recovery infrastructure, supporting India’s 2070 net-zero commitment.
The shift toward circular electronics aligns with the National Resource Efficiency Policy and the Digital India agenda. The program’s focus on reuse and repair marks a strategic pivot away from end-of-pipe waste treatment toward design-stage intervention—where manufacturers are encouraged to extend product lifecycles and minimize virgin material use.
According to UNDP India, the project will pilot material recovery innovations in major e-waste clusters such as Delhi, Bengaluru, and Pune. It will also promote green entrepreneurship, providing technical and financial assistance to small recyclers transitioning into the formal sector. This approach is expected to reduce the environmental footprint of electronics manufacturing while generating inclusive employment in safe, regulated facilities.
India’s electronics industry—valued at $155 billion in 2024—is projected to double by 2030, driven by domestic consumption and export demand. Without systemic reform, e-waste volumes could exceed 5 million tonnes per year by the decade’s end. Formalizing recycling not only addresses environmental risks but also recovers valuable materials like gold, copper, and rare earths, worth an estimated $7 billion annually.
However, scaling circular practices will depend on policy coherence, market incentives, and behavioral change. Currently, high logistics costs, fragmented collection networks, and weak consumer awareness limit formal participation. The project’s success will hinge on establishing traceability systems, harmonizing EPR compliance, and integrating informal workers—many of whom lack social protection—into licensed operations.
The GEF-UNDP-backed initiative builds on prior pilot programs that collected over 100,000 tones of e-waste and trained thousands of informal workers. This new phase aims to mainstream those lessons into national strategy, introducing data-driven monitoring tools and public-private partnerships for scaling recovery infrastructure.
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