As per industry sources, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is seeking applications from atleast 100 domestic companies, start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) under the recently announced design linked incentive (DLI) scheme. This move by the government is in line with an overall vision to create a vibrant ecosystem for semiconductor chip design in the country.
Under the DLI scheme, financial incentives and design infrastructure support will be extended to domestic companies, startups and MSMEs across various stages of development and deployment of semiconductor design for integrated circuits (ICs), chipsets, system on chips (SoCs), systems and IP cores and semiconductor linked design for over a period of five years.
The approved applicants that claim incentives under the scheme will be encouraged to retain their domestic status (that is, more than 50 per cent of the capital in it is beneficially owned by resident Indian citizens and/ or Indian companies, which are ultimately owned and controlled by resident Indian citizens) for a period of three years after claiming incentives under the scheme. For an applicant to fall under DLI scheme, an applicant must meet the threshold and ceiling limits to be eligible for disbursement of incentives under the scheme.
In addition, to promote hassle-free process, a dedicated portal has been made available for inviting online applications from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2024.
According to MeitY, the scheme aims to assist at least 20 domestic companies involved in semiconductor design and facilitate them to achieve turnover of more than Rs 15 billion in the next five years. Meanwhile, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will serve as the nodal agency for implementation of the DLI scheme.
