Legal hurdles cleared, Foxconn to get 300-acre plot near Bengaluru airport for iPhone facility soon

The Taiwanese tech giant has proposed to commission an assembly unit for Apple’s iPhones near Bengaluru’s international airport by April next year.

The modern facility is coming up at the information technology investment region (ITIR) spread across Devanahalli and Doddaballapur taluks, the minister informed Dheeraj Muniraju, MLA of Doddaballapura.

The company, which will invest about Rs 8,500 crore in the proposed manufacturing plant, could start the construction work immediately after the transfer of the plot is complete..

The facility, to be set up by the world’s biggest contract manufacturer, will have the capacity to assemble about 20 million smartphones annually, a recent statement from the government said.

The plant, which will come up on the 300-acre plot, will be Foxconn’s largest in India.

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The proposed plant, which is expected to be Foxconn’s largest plant in India, will generate about 50,000 jobs at its assembly line segment for iPhones. Karnataka’s High Level Clearance Committee headed by the chief minister had, in March, cleared Foxconn’s proposal to set up a mobile phone unit with an investment of $1 billion (more than Rs 8,000 crore).

The chipmaker subsequently increased the investment proposal to $ 1.7 billion. A Foxconn team of eight members including headquarters representatives George Chu, Simon Song from Foxconn Precious Engineering and corporate chief financial officer Tonny Liu held talks about the company’s plans with Patil, the industries minister, and Priyank Kharge, the IT/BT Minister as well as additional chief secretary (IT/BT) EV Ramana Reddy, principal secretary (industries) S Selva Kumar and industries commissioner Gunjan Krishna, last month.

The two-months-old Congress regime in Karnataka has pledged to take forward the big-ticket project cleared by the previous BJP government.

Foxconn chairman Young Liu had met the then chief minister Basavaraj Bommai in March, when the company had signed a memorandum of understanding with the government. “I am confident that this project will lay a strong foundation for our other multiple plans, spanning mechanical/precision machinery, electric vehicle, IC design & semiconductor segments to consider your state as a potential investment destination,” Liu had said in a letter to Bommai after signing the agreement.

Foxconn has asked for 50 lakh litres of water a day for the plant, which the government has assured it will get, along with other requirements such as road and power supply.

The government has asked for details of skills the company would expect new recruits to possess and offered help in sourcing skilled labour by identifying them and providing necessary training.

The Taiwanese company has plans to build the plant in three stages and assemble 20 million smartphones a year. The company has already paid Rs 90 crore, which makes up 30% of the land cost, to the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board, the government statement said.

The Taiwanese company already manufactures iPhones for Apple in India at facilities in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Its increased India push is triggered by strong domestic demand for iPhones as well as a surge in exports from India led by the diversification of global supply chains away from China.

Karnataka’s officials believe an investment by Foxconn would help the state attract many other frontline global electronics companies to the state.

Early this year, Karnataka’s legislature passed a Bill proposing amendments to its Factories Act, 1948, to align the law with longer work hours, typically required for electronics manufacturing.