AP puts Fab City on fast track

Hurt by criticism, the Andhra Pradesh government has put the Fab City and the $3 billion semiconductor wafer fabrication projects on the fast track, paving way for the issue of an order detailing the incentives and modalities of transfer of land for the project to the promoters.

The issue had taken political overtones with the Telugu Desam Party, the political opposition in the state, dubbing the project as ‘Fraud City’ last week, and characterising it as similar to the infamous Volkswagen proposal, where the state was defrauded of several crores of rupees.

Doubts were also expressed about the capability of the project’s promoter Vinod K Agarwal, former don of McGill University, Canada, and the founder of Logic Vision.

Agarwal is also the chairman of SemIndia Inc, the holding company set up to execute the Fab City project (through a special purpose vehicle called Fab City SPV), the $3 billion wafer fab, and the $100 million ATMP (assembly, testing, mark-up and packaging unit).

He was forced to fly down to Hyderabad on Wednesday to allay fears on the matter.

Andhra Pradesh heavy industries minister Geeta Reddy and Agarwal held parallel press conferences on Wednesday to address the issues raised in various quarters.

The state government said it was waiting for the Semiconductor Policy to be formulated to issue the government order.

Agarwal, in turn, said he was waiting for the state government to issue the government order to transfer the land, specify the government equity, power and water tariff before he can kick off work on the projects.

While the semiconductor policy was gazetted on March 21 the guidelines are yet to be formed by the Centre for whetting of proposals by an appraisal committee of bureaucrats and industry representatives.

Source : DNA