This blog’s piece on the electronics schemes found that India’s mobile-phone incentive beat every target while its chip programme had only a few plants producing. In July the Cabinet approved a second round, Semicon 2.0, with Rs 127,500 crore. This piece sets out where each of the first round’s 12 approved projects stands in October 2026, how much of the first round’s money has been spent, and what the second round changes.

Where the twelve projects stand

Investment figures are the totals announced at Cabinet approval; Tata’s Assam plant is also listed at Rs 27,120 crore in some sources. The four August 2025 approvals sum to Rs 4,594 crore, matching the reported total; Crystal Matrix and Suchi were approved together at about Rs 3,936 crore. Statuses are from news reports and ministers’ statements; no official project-wise table is published.

At SEMICON India in September, the government said five units were in commercial production: Micron, CG Semi and Kaynes in Sanand, and CDIL in Mohali and Suchi in Surat, which started then. All five assemble, test or package chips; none makes wafers. The one silicon fab, Tata’s at Dholera, is due to be commissioned in 2028, and HCL and Foxconn’s plant at Jewar is also aimed at 2028.

Measured by money rather than plant count, the picture is starker. The producing plants account for about Rs 33,524 crore, 20% of the approved Rs 164,169 crore. The Tata fab alone is 56%. Most of what has been approved is capacity that does not yet exist.

How much has been spent

The central government pays its support in instalments as projects reach milestones, so spending lags approvals. A parliamentary committee reported that the ministry spent Rs 681.11 crore of Rs 1,503.36 crore allocated to the programme in 2023-24, surrendering more than half. The Union Budget shows Rs 638 crore actually spent in 2024-25, a revised estimate of Rs 4,300 crore for 2025-26 and Rs 8,000 crore budgeted for 2026-27, with a further Rs 1,000 crore for Semicon 2.0. PRS Legislative Research put utilisation at 23% of the budget in 2023-24 and 9% in 2024-25.

Adding the three years gives about Rs 5,619 crore by March 2026 if the revised estimate is fully spent, about 7% of the Rs 76,000 crore outlay; spending before 2023-24 was not found but is likely small. Yet the outlay is effectively committed: if every approved project received the first round’s maximum support of 50% of cost, the total would be about Rs 82,084 crore. Actual rates and state top-ups vary, so that figure is a ceiling, but it explains why new approvals needed a second round even though most of the first round’s money has not yet been paid.

What Semicon 2.0 changes

The second round is larger but pays less per project. Silicon fabs get 40% of eligible capital spending instead of up to 50% of project cost, and compound and specialty fabs get 35%. It also pays for things the first round did not: equipment, materials, chemicals and gases, which are where much of a fab’s supply chain lies, and chip design through a sales-linked incentive. Its time limit is tighter: applications close after three years, and projects are preferably to be completed within six.

The lesson of the first round is that approval is the easy part. The second round’s money will be spent as slowly as the first’s unless projects reach their milestones faster, and the five producing units so far are the smaller, quicker assembly plants.

What would fix this

• MeitY should publish a project-wise table for every approved project, updated quarterly: approved investment, central support approved, support released, investment made and date of commercial production.
• The Union Budget should show approved commitments under the semiconductor programmes alongside yearly spending, so that the gap between money promised and money paid is visible.
• Semicon 2.0 should set and publish milestones for each project at approval, with a review if a project misses two in a row.
• Production figures for the five operating units, in chips or wafers a month, should be published so “commercial production” can be measured.

These are proposals from this blog, not recommendations any agency has adopted.

What this piece could not establish

No official project-wise status or disbursement table was found; statuses come from news reports and ministers’ remarks, and the status of SiCSem, 3D Glass Solutions and ASIP could not be confirmed. Spending figures come from a parliamentary committee report and PRS’s budget analysis, read through search-engine text; the 2023-24 figure may be labelled differently from later years, and spending before 2023-24 was not found. The Semicon 2.0 support rates are from news coverage of the notification, and the rate for assembly and packaging units was not found. Sources disagree on whether the outlay was Rs 1.25 or Rs 1.27 lakh crore; Rs 1.25 lakh crore was the Finance Ministry’s clearance in June and Rs 1.27 lakh crore the Cabinet’s approval in July.

Sources and caveats

About this article: Researched, written and edited by Umashankar Triplicane Dwarakanathan, with AI research assistance; every figure is meant to trace to the primary source cited. See the Editorial Policy for how sourcing, AI use and corrections work.