HOW FOUR INDIAN STATES ARE WOOING FOXCONN

The Taiwanese manufacturing powerhouse has already invested $10 billion. Now, it wants to expand

- Gulveen Aulakh & N. Madhavan

In December 2021, over 400 women staying at a hostel at Puduchatram on the Chennai-Tirupati highway took ill. Some of them had severe symptoms of food poisoning and were admitted to hospitals.

All of them worked at a mobile phone manufacturing facility at Sriperumbudur run by Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker and one of Apple's primary suppliers. The hostel was also run by a Foxconn group company.

The incident led to protests about poor living conditions. As many as 12-15 people were packed in a 150 sq. ft room. Shared toilets were unclean, factory workers had told Mint. The plant, which was predominantly making iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 back then, shut down for a few days.

The protests were a wake-up call for the company as well as the state government. Over the next many months, they got their act together.

In August this year, a massive industrial housing complex at Vallam Vadagal, near Sriperumbudur, spread over 20 acres and costing ₹706 crore, was inaugurated by M.K. Stalin, Tamil Nadu's chief minister. He was accompanied by Young Liu, the chairman of Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn).

The complex was built by the State Industries Development Corporation and today houses 18,720 women who work at the mobile phone production facility. In time, it could become India's first 'Foxconn City', a model popular in China. Foxconn has established large campuses in China that not only run plants but are also living spaces. There house residential facilities, recreational areas, hospitals and schools. Since large-scale factories are typically located outside urban areas, these campuses promise better quality of life for workers during their off-hours.