Gujarat allots 188 acres for Tata group, CG Power semiconductor plants

Ground-breaking likely on Mar 13; incentives form 70% of project cost

The Tata group has been allotted about 160 acres in Gujarat’s Dholera to set up the country’s first mega semiconductor fabrication plant with an investment of Rs 91,000 crore, according to officials in the state government. CG Power, on the other hand, has been given an offer-cum-allotment (OCA) of 28 acres in Sanand for its ATMP (assembly, testing, marking and packaging) plant, which will be built with an investment of Rs 7,600 crore, they said.  

The ground-breaking ceremony of the two projects is likely to take place on March 13 in the presence of top politicians and government officials. The projects, under the India Semiconductor Mission, were cleared by the Union Cabinet a few days ago.

Manish Gurwani, mission director of the Gujarat State Electronics Mission, said: “A letter of allotment for land has already been given to the Tata group in Dholera and an OCA has been given to CG Power for land in Sanand.” 

Gupta added, “We are waiting for a formal approval letter for the projects from the India Semiconductor Mission, after which the Gujarat government will provide its own letter of approval. The overall incentive for the project, from the Centre and the state government, is around 70 per cent of the overall project cost.” 

Gurwani further said a team from Tata Electronics and its technology partner, Taiwan’s PSMC, has already visited the site and discussions are on with the Dholera Special Investment Region authorities on the water, power, and effluent treatment capacity that will be required for the fab plant. 

Sources said that the Tatas have to pay 25 per cent of the cost of land upfront, while the rest will be paid by the Gujarat government to the Dholera Special Investment Region special purpose vehicle (SPV) as subsidy. 

A dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the time when he was chief minister of Gujarat, the development of Dholera Special Investment Region, located 110 km away from Ahmedabad, was announced in 2013. The first phase of this project spans 22.5 sq km and once complete, it will be bigger than the city of Singapore. 

Gujarat government officials had earlier told Business Standard that Dholera had enough water capacity (from the Narmada canal) to support eight fabrication plants and power, which is 40 per cent cheaper than that in the competing states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.  

Earlier, the Gujarat government had allotted 600 acres in Dholera to the now-aborted Vedanta-Foxconn fab and display project, which had a projected investment of Rs 154,000 crore. Micron, whose ATMP plant in Sanand is already under construction, has been allotted 93 acres for its Rs 22,500 crore project.

For the Tatas, this will be their second project in Dholera. Earlier, they were part of a consortium led by Airbus which was planning to manufacture transport aircraft at this place. Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran, while laying the foundation stone for the project in Vadodara, had said that the company would also set up a large aerospace and a high-tech manufacturing hub in Dholera. Officials in the Gujarat government said that an airport is being built in Dholera and it is expected to come up by 2025.   

The group also has Tata Power’s solar plant in Dholera, which has already been commissioned as a 300 Mw single-tracker solar tracker system, one of the largest in the country. The group also planned to set up a lithium-ion battery plant in the region, but this has now been shifted to Sanand.