The Hindu Business Line : Final guidelines on investment in Fab units next week

New Delhi April 25 The Government would issue the final guidelines for Fab units to avail themselves of benefits as per the special incentive package announced under the semiconductor policy shortly.

"We expect the expert committee to submit the final guidelines on the investment proposals in the fabrication units by next week," Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communication and IT, said.

The additional secretary, Department of IT, would head the expert committee and would also include members of the Commerce and the Finance Ministry. While Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced its investment of $4 billion, Mr Maran said that the expert committee would decide on the "best three" players.

Talking about the initiatives to promote research and development in the telecom sector, Mr Maran said: "Till now, Indian companies have been procuring telecom equipments from abroad. To promote R&D, we would establish seven telecom centres of excellence in key research institutes in which the private operators would be involved."

He said that Delhi IIT would be sponsored by Bharti, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, by Reliance, IIT Kharagpur by Hutch, IIT Chennai by Aircel, IIM Ahmedabad by Idea and ALTCC, Ghaziabad, would be run by BSNL.

These centres would work across the country on key issues like technology management, rural application, next-generation network and policy. As per the plan, the Government and the sponsor company will make an initial seed investment of Rs 10 crore per centre jointly over a 5-year period. The contribution from the sponsoring company will be treated as R&D investment to get tax benefits.