India lacks talent to meet chip manufacturing requirements: Meity official

There is no skilled talent available to handle chip manufacturing plants in India, and there will be a requirement of 10,000-13,000 human resources to meet industry requirements by 2027, a Meity official said on Friday, citing an internal report.

While speaking at a panel discussion on Electronics Sector Skill Council foundation day, Ministry of Electronics and IT Scientist 'E' Prashant Kumar said that India has a big pool of semiconductor design engineers, but to handle semiconductor plants, talents will initially come from overseas, and gradually resources will be developed in the country.

"For semiconductor manufacturing, other than Strategic Works, SCL etc, we do not have skilled manpower readily available in India. There will be around 10,000-13,000 kinds of requirements for semiconductor manufacturing," he said citing the task force report.

He later said the manpower to handle the wafer fab (semiconductor manufacturing plant) will initially come from outside, and then the companies will be engaged in creating skilled resources locally to meet the estimated requirement of a 10,000-13,000 talent pool by 2027.

Kumar said that under the Chips-to-Startup programme, the government is targeting to create over 85,000 skilled manpower by 2027 and provide expensive state-of-the-art chip designing EDA (Electronics Design Automation) tools to 120 organisations, including colleges, startups and public institutions, to give hands-on experience to students.

At the event, the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI) launched the Electronics Olympiad in association with state-owned CSC E-governance Services that will engage students in schools, colleges and higher education institutions for competition in electronics projects.