Calcutta, April 13: Videocon has proposed a Rs 1,000-crore semi-conductor unit near the city.

The company’s managing director, Venugopal Dhoot, called on chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today and sought 100 acres for a thin-film transistor technology plant.

Dhoot was the first potential investor to meet the chief minister since the Nandigram flare-up last month.

Asked if he thought acquiring land would be difficult post-Nandigram, Dhoot said the “teething trouble” would be settled in a few months.

Videocon also plans to take over the closed Webel Consumer Electronics unit in Salt Lake and convert it into a television export factory.

Dhoot said his company wants to set up a finishing school there as well, one that would teach paper processing and IT software.

Videocon has almost readied a 32 lakh-sq-ft IT park in Salt Lake, which will employ over 30,000 people, Dhoot said.

Among its other proposals are a biotech special economic zone in Dabgram, near Jalpaiguri, on a 25-acre plot and an IT and biotech SEZ in Guptamani in West Midnapore across 2,500 acres.

Videocon would be given an unused plot belonging to the state housing department in Dabgram, the chief minister said today.

Dhoot had earlier said the semi-conductor factory would come up in Hyderabad.

According to the Videocon boss, the project swung the Bengal way thanks to its chief minister’s “dynamism” and “sincerity”.

After the hour-long meeting with Dhoot, Bhattacharjee said: “The factory will compliment the India Design Centre, which we’ve proposed to set up in Kharagpur in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology.”

He added: “The centre will have semi-conductor and thin transistor engineers under one roof. We need research and development and advanced training for which the IIT labs would prove useful.”