Vedanta-Foxconn JV seeks chip unit incentives again

The Vedanta-Foxconn joint venture (JV) announced that they had re-submitted an application to establish an electronic chip manufacturing plant in India. They stated in a statement, "We have submitted the application as per the revised guidelines. We are committed to constructing a world-class fab in India."

According to the joint venture, their previous application did not meet the requirements to receive financial incentives because they were unable to find a partner with the necessary technical expertise to produce advanced semiconductor chips. In their new application for chip production under the government's $10 billion production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, the company has requested government incentives in the 40-nanometer (nm) chip category instead of the previously proposed 28-nm.

The announcement follows a media report the day before, which stated that Foxconn was seeking a new partner and stepping back from the one-year-old joint venture with the Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta group. The report mentioned that government officials had advised Foxconn to find a different partner due to concerns about Vedanta's financial stability.

Initially, the company had planned to establish a plant in Dholera, Gujarat, with an investment of approximately Rs 1.5 trillion, with revenue expected to begin by 2027.

In September 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology revised the semiconductor PLI scheme, offering a uniform 50% incentive of the project costs for all semiconductor nodes. Last month, the ministry invited new proposals from existing applicants, as the focus of the scheme shifted away from advanced semiconductors with smaller nodes.

Under the modified PLI program, the government may provide a fiscal incentive of up to 50% of the project cost for setting up semiconductor fabs in India at any node, including mature nodes. Additionally, a fiscal incentive of 50% of the project cost is available for establishing display fabs with specified technologies in India.