Tata begins construction of India's first chip plant in Assam for Rs 27,000 cr
-, Aug 04, 2024, India Blooms News Service114
Guwahati: The construction of Tatas semiconductor unit in Assams Jagiroad started on Saturday as part of the governments attempt to create an end-to-end semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in India, the Ministry of Information Technology said in a press release.
Chief Minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma and Chairman of Tata Sons Limited N Chandrasekaran were present on the occasion.
The Tata semiconductor assembly and test facility at Jagiroad is Indias first indigenous semiconductor assembly and test facility.
Todays announcement marks a significant milestone in accelerating the progress of the North-East and realizing the Prime Minister of Indias vision of Viksit Bharat, Viksit Northeast, the Ministry of Information Technology said in a statement.
Later, Union Minister for Electronics Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw told the media the commencement of the construction of Tatas semiconductor unit in Assam is a very important milestone.
He mentioned that this project was approved by the Union Cabinet on 29th February, 2024.
Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said that the unit at its capacity will employ 27,000 people, 15,000 direct jobs and additional 12,000 indirect jobs. We want to move fast. We are trying to accelerate the building of this factory. We hope sometime in 2025 we will be able to complete this facility and quickly start operations.
#WATCH | Assam: At the Bhumi Pujan ceremony of Tata semiconductor assembly and test unit in Assam, Chairman of Tata Group N. Chandrasekaran says, ...It will employ 27,000 people- 15,000 direct jobs and additional 12,000 indirect jobs. But what it will additionally do is to pic.twitter.com/WfGQ4v1jiN
ANI (@ANI) August 3, 2024
About the semiconductor unit
The Union Minister said that the unit in Assam will be set up with an investment of Rs 27,000 crores and is expected to generate 15 thousand direct and 11-13 thousand indirect jobs.
While highlighting the importance of the semiconductor industry as being a foundational one, he said that employment opportunities in various upstream and downstream industries will be created.
The proposed capacity of this unit is 4.83 crore semiconductor chips per day.
He also pointed out that this unit will be the site for development of indigenous advanced semiconductor packaging technologies including Wire Bond, flip chip and I-SIP (integrated system in package) technologies and all these three major technologies which will be deployed in this plant are being developed in India.
These technologies are extremely critical for key applications such as automotive (especially electric vehicles), communications, network infrastructure and others.
The establishment of semiconductor research and manufacturing units in the northeast states is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modis Act East policy, Vaishnaw emphasised.
The programme for development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystem in India was notified on 21.12.2021 with a total outlay of Rs 76,000 crore.
In June, 2023, the Union Cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved the proposal of Micron for setting up a semiconductor unit in Sanand, Gujarat whose construction is progressing at a rapid pace.
Talent development plan
The Union Minister also mentioned that 85,000 industry-ready workforce at B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD level in semiconductor chip design are being trained at 113 academic institutions across the country.
Nine of these are in North-east, whose details are mentioned below:
National Institute of Technology Silchar in Assam
National Institute of Technology Mizoram located in states capital Aizawl.
National Institute of Technology Manipur located in capital Imphal
National Institute of Technology Nagaland located in Dimapur
National Institute of Technology Agartala in Tripura
National Institute of Technology Sikkim in Ravangla
National Institute of Technology Arunachal Pradesh in Jote
North Eastern Hill University in Shillong, Meghalaya
National Institute of Technology Meghalaya located in Shillong