Odisha pitches an 870-acre Naraj site as eastern India's Silicon Valley at Semicon India

Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi used the second day of Semicon India 2026 in New Delhi to name an 870-acre plot at Naraj, between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, as Odisha Silicon Valley. He said the site would take semiconductor, electronics and IT projects and that the state had received proposals worth about Rs 23,600 crore with room for 6,100 jobs during the event. Some later briefings from the state side put the proposal stock above Rs 30,000 crore. The land figure did not change.

Naraj sits on the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar urban corridor, with road links to national highways and port links to Paradip and Dhamra. The Mahanadi runs beside it. Chip plants and assembly lines need large, reliable volumes of water and power. That river is the argument the state is making to investors who have already looked at Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

What is already approved

Majhi said Odisha has five semiconductor projects at various stages of construction and that one is finished and due to open next month. A separate tally from the chief minister put approved projects at about Rs 10,899 crore to Rs 11,000 crore, with nearly 4,500 direct jobs and more than 16,000 indirect jobs. Named names include SiCSem, which is building a silicon carbide fab and packaging line; 3D Glass Solutions, on glass substrate packaging; RIR Power Electronics on SiC power devices under the India Semiconductor Mission; Sancode Technologies on advanced packaging; and ASP Semicon on memory-module OSAT work. QuadQuantum has also signalled interest in SiC substrate wafers.

The state said it is working with the Centre on a semiconductor laboratory for process development. Majhi said talent pipelines were already in training and that the government wanted the cluster to cover materials, equipment, research and logistics rather than a single plant.

Why the label is doing work

Silicon Valley is a borrowed name. The substance is the land bank and the water. India still imports almost all of its finished logic chips. Assembly, testing and packaging, and silicon carbide power devices, are the layers where late-arriving states can still place bets. Odisha is late compared with Dholera and Hosur. It is early compared with a blank map. The 870 acres will only count if the five projects now on the ground start, hire and export. The Semicon India number is a pipeline figure. Pipelines leak. The river and the ports are the part of Friday's announcement that does not depend on a press conference.