MOOD IS ALL UPBEAT: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy looks on as Poornima Shenoy, president of the ISA, lights the lamp at the `Vision summit' in Hyderabad on Monday.

HYDERABAD: Fab City, the semi-conductor facility proposed to be established near Hyderabad with a projected investment of $3 billions, has received the crucial environmental clearance, according to Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.

Inaugurating India Semiconductor Association's (ISA) two-day `Vision summit' here on Monday, the Chief Minister urged entrepreneurs from the semiconductor and electronics sectors to set up manufacturing units in the State, promising infrastructural support. The Centre was expected to unveil the Fab policy in a couple of weeks.

He said Hyderabad was emerging the semiconductor capital of the country. Dr. Reddy said that an additional capacity of 7,000 MW would be installed in the next two to three years.

Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said the electronics equipment consumption was expected to grow to $363 billion by 2015 with the semiconductor content being $36.3 billion.

Electronics usage

He said as the world headed towards increasing usage of high-end electronics in security and surveillance in weapons and missiles in space and network-centric warfare, it would spur growth of the industry. The absence of domestic semiconductor manufacturing highlighted a significant imbalance between design and manufacturing and needed to be rectified, he noted.

West Bengal IT Minister Debesh Das said semiconductors would rule the world in the coming days and emphasised the need to make India self-reliant in the sector.

Rajendra Kumar Khare, ISA Chairman, said one-third of the country's GDP would be contributed by the semiconductor industry by 2015 and was expected to create more jobs in comparison to IT and ITES.

Executive Director of the Fabless Semiconductor Association Jodie Sheldon said that the design and platform approach adopted by semiconductor industry was expected to provide advantage to India over China. In three years it would transform drastically and consolidate in supply chain management.

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