| Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Indian Semiconductor Association (ISA) meet, Maran said the Andhra Pradesh government had promised to provide subsidy, power and water, besides making available 1,200 acres of land required for the project. |
| Though Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were also in the race to take home this prestigious project, they were not as proactive as Andhra Pradesh. |
| "When the government is proactive, it makes a lot of difference and Andhra Pradesh overtook Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in this regard," he said. |
| He pointed out that the Andhra Pradesh government had even promised accommodation to key officials at the posh Jubilee Hills area in Hyderabad. The project also needs a huge quantum of water for the reverse osmosis plant and the water treatment plant and the Andhra Pradesh government has promised them enough water. |
| The Fab City has the capacity to provide employment to over 15 lakh people by 2015. But this talent pool has to become available. ISA should come forward to provide this skilled workforce which the project will need in its second phase. Though the world is ahead of India in the semiconductor space, "we will catch up soon," Maran said. |
| The coming years are crucial for the Indian semiconductor industry as a lot of foreign majors are coming in, promising huge investment over the next couple of years. |
| "AMD has already agreed to come by transferring the microprocessor technology to SemIndia, Nokia has agreed to set up a manufacturing plant in Chennai and even Motorola and Siemens are also coming in," Maran said, adding that this was high time the centre as well as state governments woke up to these calls in a proactive manner. |
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