Assam’s semiconductor dream took flight on Saturday with the Bhumi Pujan or the ground-breaking ceremony of the country’s first indigenous semiconductor assembly and test facility being set up at Jagiroad in Morigaon district.

The ₹27,000-crore Tata Semiconductor Assembly & Test Facility is being set up by the Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.

According to Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who performed the Bhumi Pujan along with Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran, said the plant will see “some of the world’s most advanced electronic components having the tag ‘Made in Assam’”.

The first-of-its-kind mega project in the Northeast also has an employment potential of over 27,000 (15,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs) and “will attract world-class industrial ecosystem that will spur India’s quest to become a global leader in new age tech, Sarma said.

The importance of the facility for Assam and India could be gauged from Chandrasekaran’s speech at the ceremony.

“Semiconductor chips are going to be so fundamental for the future of every industry, be it electronics, be it telephony, consumer goods, automotive, modern health care devices. Whatever you want to do, chips are going to be fundamentally essential,” he said, adding it was a historic day and once the plant was operational, “it will transform the industrial landscape of Assam and herald a new era of growth.”

“Every nation around the world is building capabilities to be self-reliant and be part of the global supply chain ecosystem and India under the vision and leadership of our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji took a massive leap to enter into this field
and the Tata Group is very proud and pleased to spearhead this movement because we are fundamentally of the belief that this is the future and this is important for India and important for our people for the knowledge base we need to create for the future,” he said.

The assembly and test facility at Jagiroad, Chandrasekaran said, “will be very advanced because multiple different types of packaging and assembly capability will happen in this facility. With this, we will be adding an additional new capability to be able to design chips for any industry and global players.”

“The chips that are packaged in Assam will power the electric vehicles, mobile phones, laptops, health care devices of leading global companies around the world” and when the facility expands, “what it will additionally do is to bring the entire semiconductor ecosystem companies. We will need several people who will produce different components...,” he said.

The plant’s capacity is to manufacture 48 million chips a day, catering to segments such as EV, automotive, consumer electronics, mobile phone and telecom, and the first chip is expected to roll out in 2025.

Chandrasekaran said the plant would not have been possible in Assam but “for the tremendous vision and leadership of chief minister Sarma, who was very, very determined to put Assam on the path of future technology skills, employment and create jobs which will be at the high end....”

Sarma assured Chandrasekaran on behalf of the people of Assam that “you will not get any trouble, any kind of difficulty in setting up of this industry. Entire people of Assam is with us”.

The plant is being set up on the erstwhile plot of the Nagaon Paper Mill at Jagiroad, a unit of the Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited, which ceased operation in 2017. The state government took over the mill assets in March 2022. The Tata Group signed a 60-year-lease agreement with the state government to set up the semiconductor unit in July.