'Chips require long-term plan'

India needs long-term, step-by-step ecosystem-building, alongside sustained investment in research and development (R&D), to achieve semiconductor capabilities, essential for a major global economy given silicon chips' role in the information age, according to economist and Niti Aayog member Arvind Virmani.

- Gireesh Chandra Prasad & Dhirendra Kumar

Virmani said achieving sufficient domestic semiconductor capacity cannot be done overnight, and the Central and state governments have to work together to build the ecosystem with carefully planned policy instruments, subsidies being the easiest and improve ease of doing business, while ensuring essential infrastructure, such as land and electricity, for investors.

Virmani, also a former chief economic adviser in the Union finance ministry, said today's investments in R&D will, a decade or so later, help India to accelerate to the frontier of technology and manufacturing prowess.