It was referring to the $10 billion semiconductor incentive plan announced in December 2021.
The government has also asked ISMC to “submit additional information” on the project plan, sources aware of the development told ET.
The response, from the Ministry of Electronics and IT, came after the consortium wrote to the government urging it to expedite the incentive approvals necessary to start building a factory by the end of this year.
ET reported last month that ISMC had sought assurance from the ministry that it would ‘honour its words’ on providing approval to the incentives.
The response from the IT ministry, however, stopped short of offering a timeline for approvals.
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“We have asked for some additional details from all the applicants and hope to receive them by the end of this month. It will take us some time to vet that information, following which we hope to start announcing the incentives,” a senior government official said.
ISMC Analog is among the three applicants that have proposed to set up semiconductor fab units in the country.
The consortium has proposed a $3 billion analogue fab along with Tower Semiconductor, which was acquired by American multinational Intel in February.
“Going by conversations with the ministry, we are hoping the approvals will start rolling out by October,” an industry representative aware of the exchange between ISMC and the government told ET.
On whether the acquisition would have a ripple effect on Tower’s partnership for the plant in India, an Intel spokesperson said: “Until the deal is closed, Intel and Tower continue to run their businesses independently and, therefore, we’re not in a position to comment on Tower’s plans.”
ISMC is not the only one urging the ministry to move faster.
Singapore-based IGSS Ventures has also said earlier that investors were becoming ‘wary and impatient.’ IGSS has proposed a Rs 25,000 fab in Tamil Nadu.
“It has been nine months since the day the incentive policy was announced. Ideally, the ministry should have gone for a ‘ready-first and eligible, approve first’ approach,” Arun Mampazhy, a semiconductor industry veteran, told ET.
In February, the
Centre put out the names of the three applicants under the Semicon incentive to set up semiconductor factories, the revival of an attempt from 2012 to seed a semiconductor ecosystem in the country dependent on import for the electronic building blocks.
The capital incentives from the Centre alone can form up to 50% of the project cost in certain nodes.
With states also chipping in, the semiconductor fab proposals have a high government-backed incentive portion in their capital table.
The fab proposals have led to a race by states seeking to bag the investment-heavy projects.
On Tuesday, the Vedanta-Foxconn consortium said it had chosen Gujarat for its proposed semiconductor plant.
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