Mohali's Semiconductor Complex Ltd at the centre of BJP-Congress face-off

Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed past governments for "killing at birth" India's semiconductor development plans, Mohali's Semiconductor Complex Ltd has taken centre stage.

After PM's Independence Day address, in which he said India had lagged behind other nations by nearly six decades in its chip making plans, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh flagged how the Mohali SCL factory began operations from 1983.

The BJP hit back by questioning what had happened after 1983 and recalled the 1989 fire that gutted the plant, effectively pushing India back by several years.

BJP leaders, including Amit Malviya and Pradeep Bhandari, cited the parliamentary debate during which then minister-in-charge, KR Narayanan, acknowledged that the probe into the fire at the SCL plant remained inconclusive.

Malviya alleged that the most tragic chapter in India’s technical history was the Semiconductor Complex Ltd, Mohali.

"In 1984, the SCL began with a 5,000-nm process, then jumped to 800 nm — on a par with the global cutting edge, barely a year or two behind giants like Intel.

At that time, China and Taiwan hadn’t even entered the chip-fab arena.

But in 1989, disaster struck. A mysterious fire gutted the Mohali facility, starting at multiple points simultaneously. The probe was inconclusive, but suspicion of sabotage lingered. With it, India’s semiconductor dream went up in smoke," he said.

Malviya said that what followed was worse — decades of political neglect and bureaucratic apathy, with revival decisions and stalled funding.

"Today, under PM Modi’s leadership, India is rebooting its chip ambitions. The impatient must remember — semiconductors are among the hardest, most strategic industries to build. Progress has been made. Much more will follow," the BJP said.