For nearly two years, both Tata and Micron had been at the Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) and the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs, seeking assurance about the quality and quantity of water supply and uninterrupted power.

Abhishek Chaudhary, vice president (corporate affairs), of the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation, told TOI, “It was these discussions that led Tata to announce a semiconductor fab unit in Dholera at the VGGS inaugural event. Now, Micron too is looking at Dholera for the second phase of its project.” He added, “Once any semiconductor fab unit is in, it means we have met the highest quality standards for power and water.” Micron is setting up a memory assembly and test facility in Sanand, a first-of-its-kind endeavor in India. Chaudhary said that when infrastructure work gathered momentum six years ago at Dholera, the semiconductor focus area. “But we had benchmarked Dholera SIR against the world’s best. In the case of power supply, there is redundancy at the substation level and double redundancy at the source level. There is 100 percent underground power cabling which removes any kind of slippages or power fluctuations or surges. The entire power distribution network is set up by a private player.”

Similarly, in case of water, Chaudhary said, “We have a special allocation of 100 MLD from the Narmada branch canal for the next 30 to 40 years and our plants are designed to be scaled to meet the rising demand.”

The first phase of Micron’s project will be operational by 2025 as announced by Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra on Wednesday.