BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya reignited one of the darkest, yet least-discussed episodes of Bharat’s technological history. Writing on X, he called the 1989 fire at Semiconductor Complex Limited (SCL), Mohali “the most tragic chapter in Bharat’s tech history.” His words cut to the heart of a national tragedy:
“In 1984, SCL began with a 5000 nm process, then jumped to 800 nm at 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, Bharat’s semiconductor dream went up in smoke. What followed was worse — decades of political neglect and bureaucratic apathy. Today, under PM Modi’s leadership, Bharat is rebooting its chip ambitions.”
The most tragic chapter in India’s tech history: Semiconductor Complex Ltd, Mohali.
In 1984, SCL began with a 5000 nm process, then jumped to 800 nm — at par with the global cutting edge, barely a year or two behind giants like Intel.
At that time, China and Taiwan hadn’t even… pic.twitter.com/9H4greMxDy
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) August 16, 2025
The event is a memory of catastrophe that destroyed Bharat’s early chance to become a semiconductor superpower. In the mid-1980s, while Taiwan was still building its foundations and China was nowhere in the game, Bharat had already built a fab facility capable of 800 nm process technology an astonishing achievement that placed it within two years of global leaders like Intel.
Then came the night of February 7 1989.
At 11:40 PM, flames erupted inside the state-of-the-art Mohali facility. They did not start in one location but at multiple points simultaneously, a fact that raised immediate suspicion of deliberate sabotage. Firefighters from Mohali, Chandigarh, Ropar, Punjab State Electricity Board, and even the Air Force joined SCL’s in-house team in battling the blaze through the night.
By the morning of 8 February, the fire was finally doused but the damage was devastating. The device manufacturing facility and R&D blocks were reduced to ashes, wiping out years of cutting-edge progress. The administration and corporate offices survived, but the core of Bharat’s semiconductor dream had been annihilated.
Official Admission in Parliament
- In a statement to Parliament, Minister of State K.R. Narayanan laid out the grim details:
- The fire destroyed the main fab and research sections.
- A preliminary estimate of losses was pegged at Rs. 60 crores (a colossal amount in 1989).
- Around 50 per cent of SCL’s 850 employees mostly technicians and technical assistants were directly affected in terms of employment.
No lives were lost, but Bharat’s technological future had been crippled.
An inquiry led by Maj. Gen. S.A. Mohile (Retd.), Ex-Director of Defence Institute of Fire Studies, examined the incident. Ash samples were even tested for petrochemical residues to check for accelerants. Yet, the probe could not produce conclusive answers. Officially, the cause remained unknown. Unofficially, suspicion of sabotage — at a time when Punjab was engulfed in militancy and Bharat’s strategic projects were always under foreign eyes — has never gone away.
The fire was not just a one-night disaster. What followed in its wake was, in many ways, worse. Instead of rebuilding with urgency, successive governments allowed SCL’s ashes to cool into decades of neglect. Funding decisions were stalled, revival projects delayed, and the political will absent.
While Bharat stagnated, Taiwan established TSMC in 1987 and rapidly rose to global dominance. China, starting from scratch in the 1990s, poured billions into semiconductor R&D and subsidies. By the 2000s, both nations had left Bharat decades behind.
A facility that once placed Bharat within touching distance of Intel’s technology had been reduced to a footnote in history. Bharat’s dependence on imported chips grew, hollowing out its strategic autonomy in one of the most critical technologies of the modern age.
Today, more than three decades later, the Modi government has re-launched Bharat’s semiconductor mission with billions in incentives for global players, approval of new fabs, and a push to create an end-to-end ecosystem from design to manufacturing. Semiconductors are among the hardest industries to build — “progress has been made, much more will follow.”
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