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The Centre on Thursday said it will provide basic and advanced training to 2,100 tribal students in semiconductor technology over the next three years, as the country aims to create a skilled workforce for chip design and manufacturing. 

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs, in collaboration with IISc Bangalore, will provide basic training to 1,500 tribal students and advanced training to 600 tribal students in chip technology.

All tribal students who possess a degree in one of the engineering subjects, are eligible to apply for the programme, the Parliament was informed.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has created six large nano centres (including IISc) for delivering training in semiconductor technology.

The degree programmes at these nano centres have representation from tribal community, as per the reservation policies. Other than degree programmes, the nano centres also run short-term training programmes under the Indian Nanoelectronics User's Programme (INUP) programme.

However, the programme with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the first training program dedicated exclusively to tribal communities. The project aims to deliver 2,100 NSQF-certified level 6.0 & 6.5 training in semiconductor technology to tribal students over three years.

The INUP is a unique initiative for accelerating research and development in nanoelectronics that was launched in August 2008 at the Centers of Excellence in Nanoelectronics (CEN) at IISc Bangalore and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB).

The programme aims to facilitate experimentation of research ideas of Indian researchers in the general area of nanoelectronics.

According to Union Minister for Railways, Electronics and IT and I&B, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the development of indigenous advanced semiconductor packaging technologies are extremely critical for key applications such as automotives (especially electric vehicles), communications, network infrastructure, and others.

Nearly 85,000 industry-ready workforce at B.Tech, M.Tech, and PhD-level in semiconductor chip design are being trained at 113 academic institutions across the country, and nine of these are in the Northeast.

Highlighting the importance of the semiconductor industry as being a foundational one, the Minister said recently that employment opportunities in various upstream and downstream industries will be created.