India gets $20b in investment proposals for chip production

Bloomberg

India has received proposals worth $20.5 billion from five companies to manufacture semiconductor fabs and display fabs locally, according to a government statement.
Companies including Vedanta in joint venture with Foxconn, Singapore-based IGSS Ventures pte, and ISMC have proposed $13.6 billion investments for manufacturing the chips, which are used in a wide array of products ranging from 5G devices to electric cars. The three companies have sought support of $5.6 billion from the federal government under its incentive plan.
“Despite aggressive timelines for submission of applications in this greenfield segment of semiconductor and display manufacturing, the scheme has elicited good response,” the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in the statement.
Further, two companies — Vedanta and Elest — have submitted proposals worth $6.7 billion to manufacture display fabs and have sought incentives of $2.7 billion from the government, according to the statement.
The South Asian nation’s semiconductor market is estimated to reach $63 billion by 2026 compared with $15 billion in 2020. The incentive program is an effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to boost the share of manufacturing in the economy and reverse the pandemic induced slowdown. The incentives were announced amid a prediction that a global chip shortage is likely to extend until early 2023 and demand may remain above the long-term expectation in 2022.

India ramps up charging infrastructure
India installed more than 650 electric vehicle charging stations in key cities in the four months ended January 31, the government said in a statement, as it seeks to boost the production and use of EVs.
The South Asian nation added 180,000 new EVs to its roads from October 2021 to the end of last month, it said. “This has exhibited greater confidence among the consumers to shift towards electric mobility,” according to the statement from the Ministry of Power. “After the saturation of EV infrastructure in these mega cities, the government has plans to expand the coverage to other cities in a phased manner.”
India, the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet and home to some of its worst air pollution, has set a goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. This would require a huge shift to EVs, which make up just 1% of overall annual auto sales, compared with 30% in some parts of China, due to high cost and sparse charging infrastructure.
Currently, India has 1,640 operational public EV chargers, 940 of which are concentrated in nine major cities including Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai. Last month, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi revised guidelines for establishing a charging infrastructure network. State-run oil marketing companies have also announced they would set up 22,000 EV charging stations in prominent cities and on national highways across the country.
The government is considering allowing the swapping of batteries for electric cars to spur adoption of EVs.