‘India will evaluate Foxconn, Vedanta chip plant proposals’

Gandhinagar: The Centre will wait for separate proposals from Taiwan’s Foxconn and Indian conglomerate Vedanta to set up semiconductor plants in the country and evaluate them accordingly, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said here on Tuesday.

Early this month, Foxconn pulled out of a semiconductor joint venture with billionaire Anil Agarwal-promoted Vedanta. The Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant said it was working to apply separately for setting up a semiconductor unit in India.

“There were two private partners who submitted a joint venture proposal (to set up a semiconductor unit in India). They now believe they will submit their proposals separately. So we will wait for their proposals and evaluate them accordingly,” Chandrasekhar said when asked about the development.

At the inaugural ceremony of the 6-day exhibition on cutting-edge technologies related to semiconductors being organised as part of ‘Semicon India 2023’,

Chandrasekhar said what the country has achieved in the last 15 months in the semiconductor sector was not achieved in the last 70 years. The exhibition was inaugurated by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

“When different countries progressed a lot in the field of semiconductors, our country has either been unsuccessful or ignored to tap into this opportunity. Different governments either ignored or remained unsuccessful in different ways regarding this sector,” he told reporters.

“It is the first time such a successful effort has been made. We have progressed so much in the last 15 months that was not seen in the last 70 years,” he said.

The Union minister of state said that Gujarat is “leapfrogging” every other state in terms of building the semiconductor ecosystem, with the big investment of Micron – a US chipmaker – coming to the state. (PTI)