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The notification is the site-enabling statutory instrument for India's first commercial-scale wafer-fab plant. It does three things in one gazette filing:
1. Notifies the SEZ. Under §4(1) of the SEZ Act 2005, the Department of Commerce formally constitutes 66.166 ha of land at Dholera SIR (Gujarat) as a sector-specific SEZ for "electronic hardware and software, including IT/ITES". The notification follows the Letter of Approval (LoA) issued to Tata Semiconductor Manufacturing on 17 March 2026, and the May 2024 Board of Approval clearance. 2. Designates the zone as an Inland Container Depot (ICD) under the Customs Act 1962, also effective 9 April 2026. This lets the fab handle import/export cargo on-site instead of routing customs clearance through Mundra/Pipavav — material for a fab that must import wafers, photomasks, gases, photoresists, and equipment from PSMC (Taiwan), ASML/Tokyo Electron supply chain, and US/EU vendors. 3. Constitutes the Approval Committee with members from Department of Commerce, DGFT, Customs, Income Tax, Finance Ministry, the Government of Gujarat, and the developer.
Once the SEZ is operational, units inside enjoy the standard SEZ Act fiscal package: zero customs duty on imported capital goods and inputs, GST exemption on supplies from the DTA (treated as zero-rated exports), and the reduced 15% corporate tax rate available to new manufacturing units under section 115BAB of the Income-tax Act (where applicable).
The fab itself was announced under ISM 1.0 in February 2024 and is being built by Tata Electronics in partnership with Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC, Taiwan), who is providing technology transfer and execution support across mature/legacy nodes (28nm, 40nm, 50nm/55nm, 90nm, 110nm). Stated capacity is up to 50,000 wafers/month / ~3 billion chips/year for power management ICs, display drivers, MCUs, and HPC logic.
The Tata project receives ~50% capital subsidy under the ISM 1.0 Modified Scheme for Setting Up Semiconductor Fabs (Centre's share ~INR 45,500 crore against the ~INR 91,000 crore project cost; Gujarat state matches additional incentives). ISM 1.0's INR 76,000 crore corpus is the funding source; the SEZ notification is purely the site / customs status enabling layer that sits on top of that subsidy contract.
This is enabling infrastructure rather than a fresh subsidy commitment — the financial commitment was already booked under ISM 1.0 (Feb 2024) and the ISM 2.0 follow-on (Feb 2026, already filed). What changes on 9 April 2026 is the legal site status: the gazette notification unlocks duty-free imports of fab equipment, GST zero-rating on inputs, and on-site customs handling. Without it the project cannot economically import the ~USD 5-6bn of foreign-origin tooling and consumables required to build out a fab. Severity 3 (vs the ISM 2.0 framework filing at 4) reflects:
the LoA + ISM 1.0 grant; gazetting confirms but does not create the underlying commitment.
from Tata Electronics is now operationally de-risked on the Indian side. Watch for milestone payments showing up in PSMC quarterly reports.
power-management IC and display-driver business as the Dholera fab ramps to 50k wpm / ~3bn chips/year of mature-node capacity. Effect is small (Tata at ~3% of global mature-node capacity at full ramp).
assembly, Bharat FIH)**: domestic chip supply for MCUs and PMICs from ~2027-28 reduces import dependence on China/Taiwan for a sub-set of consumer/auto applications.
Research, KLA)**: bookings to Dholera are now duty-free under SEZ rules, lowering the landed-cost gap vs. Chinese/Taiwanese fabs.
fab cluster around Gujarat / Sanand becomes more attractive as the anchor fab clears its statutory milestones.
for trial wafer production — verify against site progress.
domestic-procurement obligation beyond ISM 1.0's standard conditions.
open to broader Dholera SIR users — the gazette text is not yet publicly mirrored.
packaging) plant at Jagiroad, Assam under a separate ISM 1.0 grant — that is a different project and does not share this SEZ notification.