Promoting Sustainable Electronics in India

In May 2025, India took a significant step towards sustainable electronics by accepting a proposal for a Repairability Index for mobile phones and appliances. This index ranks products based on their ease of repair, access to spare parts, and software support. Alongside, new e-waste policies now include minimum payments to incentivise formal recycling. This initiative aims to make repair a consumer right and a cultural and intellectual resource worth preserving.

India's Digital and AI Policy Landscape

• India's digital and AI policies, like the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and the National Strategy on Artificial Intelligence (NSAI), emphasize innovation and data-driven governance.
• The informal repair and maintenance economy remains largely invisible within these frameworks.
• Informal repairers in India possess tacit knowledge, crucial for material resilience, that often goes unrecognized in formal policy.

Challenges Faced by Informal Repairers

• Informal repairers, such as mobile fixers and appliance technicians, face challenges due to product designs becoming less repairable and a consumer shift towards disposability.
• This results in economic opportunities being lost and a vast reservoir of undocumented knowledge being overlooked.
• Tacit knowledge in India's repair economy is passed through mentorship and observation, not formal training, making it hard to codify.

Global and National Right to Repair Movements

• The global Right to Repair movement is gaining traction, with the European Union enforcing rules on spare parts and repair documentation access.
• In India, the Department of Consumer Affairs launched a Right to Repair framework in 2022, extending to electronics, automobiles, and farm equipment.
• India generated over 1.6 million tonnes of e-waste in 2021-22, becoming the world’s third-largest producer.

Supporting Informal Repair Workers

• Current national skilling programs focus on formal industrial roles, neglecting the improvisational skills required for repair work. 
• Policies promoting circularity risk ignoring the workforce that enables it.
• Initiatives like Mission LiFE promote repair and reuse, but further efforts are needed to support the workers.

Designing for "Unmaking"

• Emerging ideas in research propose designing for "unmaking," where devices are easily taken apart and repurposed, revealing opportunities for reuse.
• This approach can transform breakdowns into feedback loops and practical insights.
• Repairers play a crucial role in the circular economy, yet are often unrecognized.

Policy Recommendations

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology should embed repairability criteria into AI and procurement policies.
• The Department of Consumer Affairs could expand the Right to Repair framework to include product classification and community involvement.
• Platforms like e-Shram should formally recognize informal repairers, connecting them to social protection and skill-building schemes.
• The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship should consider training programs that focus on the tacit, diagnostic nature of repair work.

Supporting this ecosystem is about valuing the quiet, embodied labour that sustains digital and material lives, crucial for a repair-ready technological future. As philosopher Michael Polanyi noted, "We know more than we can tell," emphasising the importance of preserving human wisdom.