The government of India has invited proposals from entities to set up electronic chip manufacturing units in the country and even acquire any company making semiconductors overseas.
The expression of interest floated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology recently said that the government is keen to incentivize and attract investment in setting up semiconductor fabrication units in India.
Meity has fixed January 31, 2021 as the last date for submitting the proposal. The government plans to use the proposals to formulate a scheme for setting up or expansion of existing semiconductor plants in the country, according to the document.
MeitY said the need to set up semiconductor plants assumes significance in view of the fact that India is poised to increase its share in global manufacturing of mobile phones, IT hardware, automotive electronics, industrial electronics, medical electronics, IoT and other devices in the near future as it aspires to have $400 billion of electronics manufacturing by 2025.
The government had approved two semiconductor units in 2013 with an investment of around ₹63,000 crore. However, both the units could not be set-up due to lack of electronics manufacturing ecosystem in the country and policy-linked market support.
Along with the production-linked incentive scheme for electronics manufacturing, MeitY had announced the scheme for promotion of manufacturing of electronic components and semiconductors as well with a budget outlay of ₹3,285 crore spread over a period of eight years but no electronic chip manufacturer has shown interest in the scheme yet.
