Chennai: Taiwanese company Foxconn electronics manufacturing company is likely to consider and revive its factory near Chennai before the end of this month. State industries minister MC Sampath informed the assembly that the company head Terry Gou had indicated as much to a team of officials of Tamil Nadu government who met him recently.

“Foxconn’s head told us that he would consider reviving the Chennai factory before July 2016,” the minister said.

The government is working overtime to get the company revived this month only, sources in the government said.

Foxconn, involved in manufacturing activities in the state for several years, had suspended operations in its facility in the Nokia SEZ after a fall in orders. Its main customer was Nokia, which suspended its operations at Chennai due to a tax dispute and could not transfer this facility to Microsoft in their global sale agreement.

Nokia, a household name in mobiles till recently, shut its Sriperumbudur plant as its orders from Mircosoft dried up. Foxconn also stopped operations in December 2014 in the SEZ.

The Chennai facility was put on a freeze by the income tax department, who said the company owed Rs 23,000 crore in taxes and Tamil Nadu government another Rs 2400 crore.

Chief minister Jayalalithaa had sought prime minister Narendra Modi;s intervention when she called on his during her recent visit to Delhi to resolve the tax dispute so that the company can revive its Tamil Nadu unit. This request is part of her 94 page memorandum to the prime minister.

“The Nokia factory at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu was one of the largest manufacturing facilities for mobile phones in the world. The government of Tamil Nadu signed a MoU with Nokia on April 4, 2005, and with the support of the state government, a global electronic manufacturing hub was developed. Unfortunately, retrospective amendments to tax laws brought in 2012 by the then United Progressive Alliance government forced the Nokia plant to shut down in November, 2014, causing more than 15,000 direct employees to lose their jobs. You (PM Modi) had announced in the Rajya Sabha in February, 2015, that the government of India will take all necessary steps to revive the Nokia unit.

Foxconn have recently come forward to take over and revive the plant. To enable such a takeover, the government of India would have to facilitate the defreezing of Nokia’s assets, frozen by an order of the Delhi high court in an income tax (I-T) case, by arranging for the proceeds of the sale/lease transaction to be paid into a separate escrow account to meet the final tax liabilities. Such a course of action will ensure that the existing plant is utilised, jobs restored to thousands of persons and production commenced immediately,” Jayalalithaa said in her memorandum.