New Delhi: The government is expected to finalise its partner for the estimated Rs 25,000 crore electronic chip making project in the country by end of this fiscal.

"We are in advance stage of finalising partner for setting up wafer fab in the country and very positive to finalise the project partner by end of this fiscal," a government official involved in the project told PTI.

In a presentation made before Communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, Department of Electronics and Information Technology has said the "fab (electronic chip making plant) is likely to be operational by 2014".

The project was approved by Cabinet on April 20, 2011 for setting up two Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication (Fab) manufacturing Facilities in the country and the estimated investment for these fabs is 25,000 crore.

The semiconductor or electronic chips are considered brain of all electronics product like mobile phone, computers, devices and equipments used in telecom networks, defence etc.

Electronic chips are considered to be key components that can be manipulated for cyber espionage and other sort of cyber crimes.

An IT Task force report had said, "Electronics used in aerospace, defense and other parts of strategic establishments are mostly imported."

"This can pose threats of design leakage or any other intrusion, which may hamper the country's security. Hence, such goods should be indigenised as far as possible," it said.

Setting up of these wafer fabs are expected to bootstrap innovation and R&D, especially in the area of semiconductors and others which will help in generating employment of the order of about 3 crore (direct and indirect) by 2020 across various levels of competencies.