To offset the semiconductor import bill and kickstart the homegrown chip manufacturing ecosystem, the government has approved five semiconductor chip manufacturing and assembly projects with a cumulative investment of Rs 1.52 lakh crore, Prasad said in reply to a question in the lower house of the Parliament.
Apart from the chip manufacturing and assembly units, the government has also approved proposals from nearly 15 semiconductor design companies under the Design Linked Incentive scheme, the minister of state said.
“Additionally, 41 semiconductor design companies have been approved for access of the tools required for designing the chips (called EDA tools) which is being made available by the National EDA Tool Grid setup at ChipIN Centre at C-DAC Bengaluru,” he said.
To support the talent required to work in the semiconductor industries being set up in India, the government has so far trained 25,257 engineering students across 113 organisations under the chips-to-startups scheme. The government aims to train a total of 85,000 industry-ready manpower for semiconductor chip design, very-large-scale integration, and embedded system design areas under this scheme.
A sum of Rs 28.95 crore was spent by the IT ministry for capacity building and skill development in the semiconductor area during the last financial year, whereas Rs 69.84 crore has been spent to date for the same during this fiscal, Prasad informed the Lok Sabha.
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“Government of India acknowledges the importance of nurturing world-class talent to build a robust semiconductor ecosystem, recognizing that capacity-building initiatives, and skill development programs to address workforce gaps is the foundation of this effort,” he said in his reply.
