New Delhi [India], April 5 (ANI): India's semiconductor manufacturing, which is important to meet the country's strategic needs, has attracted good interest from global companies, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Communications and Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw has said.

In a bid to give a boost to semiconductor manufacturing in the country, the government has launched a programme called Semicon India Programme with an outlay of Rs 76,000 crore. The programme launched on December 15, 2021 seeks to support the development of the semiconductors and the display manufacturing ecosystem in India.

"Semiconductor manufacturing, which is crucial to meet the strategic needs of the country, has attracted interest from global companies as a good number of applications have been received under the programme," Vaishnaw said addressing members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of ElectronicsInformation Technology (MeitY) on Monday evening.

The minister apprised the parliamentary consultative committee that several state governments like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are in talks with the companies to set up semiconductor manufacturing plants/fab complexes.

The MPs present in the meeting included Preneet Kaur, Radha Mohan Singh and K R Suresh Reddy.

Minister of State in the Ministry of ElectronicsInformation Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Minister of State in the Ministry of Communications Devusinh Chauhan were also present at the meeting. The subject of the meeting was 'Semiconductor Policy and Ecosystem'.

A presentation was given by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to inform the committee regarding the potential of growth of the electronics sector in general and the semiconductor sector in specific.

The emerging market and large export potential of the compound semiconductors were also focused upon.

MPs were informed about the measures being undertaken by the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology to promote the electronics manufacturing in India and to support the semiconductor and display ecosystem and allied sectors in the country, the Ministry of ElectronicsIT said in a statement.

The Semicon India Programme aims to provide attractive incentive support to companies / consortia that are engaged in Silicon Semiconductor Fabs, Display Fabs, Compound Semiconductors / Silicon Photonics / Sensors (including MEMS) Fabs, Semiconductor Packaging (ATMP / OSAT) and Semiconductor Design. (ANI)