Thursday, February 20, 2014: Even as the Indian government earlier gave a nod for the setting up of an electronic chip-manufacturing plant at Prantij, the Gujarat state government has now revealed that there is simply no land available for the ambitious project. As such the state government may find it difficult to allot land for the Rs 290,000 million chip plant.
“Some 500 acres of land is available at Vaghpur, but it is meant for a proposed Central University. We have no application from any industry to be set up at Prantij, either. Even if an industry has to purchase private land, it has to approach us with the proposal. But that hasn’t happened so far,” a senior revenue official was quoted by Business Line as saying. Interestingly, the State Government had earlier said it would allot 1,000 acres of land for the ambitious project.
The project at Pratij is one of the two electronic chip manufacturing plants to set up in the country following an approval by the Union Cabinet. The plant will be built by HSMC Technologies India Pvt in partnership with STMicroelectronics and Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd and will entail an investment of around Rs 290,000 million. It will have a capacity of 40,000 WSPM.
Meanwhile, the other plant will be set up by Jaiprakash Associates Ltd, with IBM and Tower Semiconductor of Israel as partners. The plant entailing an investment of Rs 343990 million and will located along the Yamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh. It will also have a capacity of 40,000 WSPM.