By RV Warjri
This article is a response to KN Kumar’s out of the box op-ed “Meghalaya should chip in to India’s’ Silicon story” ( ST , May 12, 2025)was followed by an op-ed by protagonist Toki Blah’s, “A Game Changer for Meghalaya’s economy” (ST, May 19, 2025). And again K N Kumar’s “Make Meghalaya the Silicon Valley of the Northeast” (ST, May 21, 2025).
I begin with a banter. Chips here is not about potato chips which is Meghalaya leading crop potato can also be turned into and its ubiquitous packed packet which either hangs in shops and kiosks and the empty packets littering the roadside and nullahs. It’s about semiconductor chips – an indispensable item in our compulsive mobile as well as in thousands of other technology relating products and goods. It has been the near monopoly of China or imported from Taiwan but now the global geo-eco-politics is shifting its interest to India. Assam has already taken advantage of the situation and I saw with my own eyes recently about work in progress at the 27,000 Cr Tata Semiconductor plant at Jagi Road. Its demonstration effect should prayerfully impact Meghalaya. Inter alia Meghalaya needs a paradigm shift from a political economy that revolves around schemes only, to one that can manufacture semi-conductor chips .
The official web portal of Meghalaya Government in its side links has a heading on schemes. About 120 of them! Most of them after the year 2000. Only some of them have mentioned the date of the release of the schemes though the amount has mysteriously not been mentioned. The list of schemes include those from Agriculture, Community & Rural Development, Housing, Fishery, Child Welfare, Handloom, Education, Industries, Water, etc. Then the scheme on start-ups, PRIME Open Venture Scheme .
The well known centrally sponsored schemes implemented by the States are Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme , Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana , Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana , Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – PMAY Rural and PMAY Urban, National Drinking Water Mission , Swachh Bharat Mission, National Health Mission, National Health Protection Scheme , National Education Mission , Integrated Child Development Services , Mission for Empowerment and Protection of Women , National Livelihood Mission , Jobs and Skills Development , Urban Rejuvenation Mission . Then there are Centrally Sector Schemes implemented by the Centre with higher allocation like LPG connection to poor households , National Aids and STD control mission , Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme , Crop Insurance Scheme , National Mission on Food Processing , Integrated Development of Tourist Circuits , Assistance to promotion of Sports Excellence .
The Central scheme SVAMITVA (Survey of Villages and Mapping with improvised Technology in Village Areas ) aims at providing an integrated inhabited property ownership solution for rural India. For unknown reasons Meghalaya rejected the scheme though it would have been a boon to the urgent need for a cadastral survey in the state and opened up the gates to the fera of land alienation, apprehension and obscurity about investment in Meghalaya .
Meghalaya is largely agrarian with main crops like potatoes , rice , maize , fruits like pineapples , bananas , papayas and then spices like ginger and turmeric . If Viksit Meghalaya is on the agenda then it should hop step and jump from predominantly agrarian to the Fourth Industrial revolution of Semi-conductor chips. The First Industrial Revolution started in England since 1794 by using water and steam power to mechanize production. 1870 started the Second Industrial revolution, using electric power for mass production. The British introduced both the revolutions in India albeit for its colonial purposes . The Third in 1969 used electronics and information technology to automate production when Meghalaya had not even existed. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, characterized by a fusion of technologies between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. The Industrial Revolution also introduced the concept of value addition economics when people started making what they needed on their farms with machines instead of by hand .
According to the World Economic Forum, the possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited. And these possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nano-technology, bio-technology, materials, science, energy storage, and quantum computing. Semi-conductors make up a vital part of the fourth industrial revolution. As crude was to the third, semi-conductors will be to the fourth.
Government of India has launched the India Semi-conductor Mission (ISM). To build a strong semiconductor and display ecosystem, positioning India as a global hub for electronics manufacturing and design. Some units have demonstrated the growing partnership between Taiwan multinational Foxconn a global major in electronics manufacturing and Indian HCL that has a long history of developing and manufacturing hardware. Together they will set up a plant near Jewar airport in Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority or YEIDA. This plant will manufacture display driver chips for mobile phones, laptops, automobiles, PCs, and myriad of other devices that have display.
K N Kumar had opined on the creation of a Meghalaya Semi-conductor Mission which would work on the skills for the youth and tap into the progress which the semi-conductor industry has advanced in neighbouring Assam and collaborating with global leaders in the semi-conductor industry who are already established in India. The story of how the semi-conductor startups in cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore took off should be studied and replicated in Meghalaya. Its the story that attracted IT leaders like Bill Gates to extend all cooperation and partnership and US Presidents like Bill Clinton to visit Hyderabad in 2000.
Toki Blah suggested that MIDC (Meghalaya Industrial Development Corporation) takes the lead. Certainly, its website talks about its vision, mission, objectives and functions. It’s says “to function as key role in the process of promotion and development of balanced industrial growth leading to more employment opportunities and create industrial infrastructure in order to support economic development of the state.” “To promote / establish industrial ventures across the state.” MIDC should ask itself to what extent it has lived up to its vision, mission, objectives and functions. Perhaps its watershed project can be leading from the front on the Meghalaya Semi-conductor Mission. The ancillary units that can multiply from the Semiconductor plant has been detailed by Toki Blah.
“You have to dream before your dreams come true,” one of the famous lines of the late legendary Scientist-President of India APJ Abdul Kalam. It can be the allegory to turning Meghalaya into a Silicon Valley as proposed by K N Kumar who has also written extensively about tapping the Meghalaya diaspora and creating a Meghalaya Tech Return Scheme (MRTS) .
Only recently there was a celebration of the upgradation of the Shillong Polytechnic to a Shillong Government College of Engineering with courses in Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Recognized by the All India Council for Technical Education, the institution can also be platform for imparting the skills and expertise to the youth that can be absorbed in the future semi-conductor plant.
All this will however come a cropper if there is no political will, especially in confronting pressure groups who have made a living out of opposing anything to move forward. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s famous lines “nothing to fear but fear itself.“