ISM 2.0 will support setting up of facility for chemicals, gases, equipment manufacturing in India: Senior MeitY official

Offering a teaser about the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0, Amitesh Kumar Sinha, Additional Secretary, Ministry of electronics, information technology (MeitY), and CEO of India Semiconductor Mission, on Monday (April 6, 2026) said, in ISM 2.0, the government is trying to support setting up of facility for chemicals, gases, materials, and equipment manufacturing in India. “ISM 2.0 is totally focussed on these verticals,” Mr. Sinha stated during a fireside chat ‘From Assembly to Electronics Excellence: India’s Semiconductor Ambitions’ at the two-day Deep Tech Summit 2026 organised by The Hindu Group in association with the SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST) in Chennai.

Observing that setting up semiconductor manufacturing was not an easy task, Mr. Sinha, in conversation with Aroon Deep, Principal Correspondent of The Hindu, said the industry has multiple ingredients and every ingredient has a very precise implementation process or engineering process that is required to set that up. Flagging certain challenges faced by companies, he said the companies are overcoming those problems with the support of the government which fully understands that ecosystem has a very important role.

Equipment, technology partners and supply chain partners are important, he pointed out and said that in ISM 2.0, “We are trying to support setting up of facility for chemicals, gases, materials, and equipment manufacturing in India. So, the next leg of ISM 2.0 will focus entirely on these verticals.”

Observing that other three verticals of design, manufacturing, and packaging will continue, Mr. Sinha said: “Besides, these kinds of ecosystem development efforts will start. Parallelly, we will also start working on specific technology development oriented R & D.” Skilling will be a thrust area going forward, he underlined.

Replying to a query, Mr. Sinha said that the government’s role was to create opportunities and to provide infrastructure and also underlined the importance of industry’s participation. “We all know that deep tech is very capital intensive and it needs a lot of infrastructure in terms of lab facility, testing facilities and many more. The government will create that along with the industry,” mentioned Mr. Sinha. So, the industry which is looking for a real-time solution to integrate in their product lines or to solve some problems that they are facing, is also a very important partner in all this, he added.

Amitesh Kumar Sinha, Additional Secretary, Ministry of electronics, information technology (MeitY), and CEO of India Semiconductor Mission, at the two-day Deep Tech Summit 2026 organised by The Hindu Group in association with the SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST) in Chennai. He is in conversation with Aroon Deep, Principal Correspondent, The Hindu
| Photo Credit:
R. Ragu

“The industry and government will have to create a platform where the academia and industry researchers, innovators can come together,” stated the senior IAS officer. Once it is established as a centre of excellence, it will start attracting talent from everywhere. And that is when it becomes an organisation where deep tech kind of solutions will be generated and then it will continue the journey,” Mr. Sinha said.

When asked about the need for the industry to do six sigma manufacturing in terms of quality control and build indigenous design, the official said: “ Electronics is very, very focused towards reliability. And once your systems are reliable, then your market access will further increase. In semiconductor chips, yield is a parameter.” Six sigma was a symbol indicating that one has to control their process, he said. “You have to optimise that process. You have to analyse the defect lines and then improve it to near to perfection level.”