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Make in India: Maharashtra approves new, ambitious policy for electronics sector

These MoUs, worth over Rs 50,000 crore, will include an agreement with Sterlite Technologies for a fabrication unit in Nagpur, and with Nestle for a unit in Bhandara

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government approved a new policy for the electronics sector, one of the five policies it will unveil during the Make in India Week starting Saturday.

The new policies are being finetuned with an eye on attracting further investment in the state. On the first day of the Make In India Week, the Maharashtra government will sign five or six Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will inaugurate the Make in India Week scheduled from February 13 to 18.

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These MoUs, cumulatively worth over Rs 50,000 crore, will include an agreement with Sterlite Technologies for a fabrication unit in Nagpur, and with Nestle for a unit in Bhandara.

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The government will also sign agreements with Coca Cola for an orange juice processing plant in Morshi in Amravati district, and with textile major Raymond for a unit in Amravati, a senior state government official said.
“The MoU to be signed with Sterlite Technologies will be one of the largest, worth Rs 16,000 crore. Currently, there are no fabrication companies in all of India, with most of the markets being in Taiwan, Korea and Japan. There are incentives provided within the electronics policy that will spur these kind of investments in the state,” the official added.

The state government has approved a ‘fab’ policy for fabrication companies to encourage chip and chip equipment makers as a sub-set of the electronics policy. Sterlite, which will be one of the first companies to avail of the new sops, plans to set up a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel fabrication unit. The Anil Agarwal-led Sterlite Technologies, which shares common lineage with London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc, is into optic fibres, fibre-optic cables, power conductors and so on.

Festive offer

Swadheen Kshatriya, Maharashtra chief secretary, said, “The benefits as part of the ‘fab’ policy will be applicable only in Marathwada and Vidarbha to boost industrial growth in these regions, and only for huge projects with an initial investment of more than Rs 5,000 crore.”
The benefit would be given to industries with an initial investment of Rs 5,000 crore and a minimum investment of Rs 10,000 crore over the next ten years. The government will grant a maximum capital subsidy of 10 per cent, along with other incentives already provided to companies in the electronics sector.

Overall, with the electronics policy, which will be in effect till 2020, the Maharashtra government hopes to bring in an investment of $3 billion over five years to support an industry worth $12 billion.

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With the policy, the government hopes to create about one lakh jobs across consumer electronics manufacturing, telecommunications, manufacturing of lithium ion batteries, Light Emitting Diodes and so on.

All companies under the policy will be promised round-the-clock power, loan subsidies, a 10-year property tax waiver, a 15-year waiver on electricity duty, power tariff subsidies, a hundred percent Value Added Tax subsidy and so on.

Besides the electronics policy, the Maharashtra government plans to highlight its newly-approved policies for the retail sectors, ports, for entrepreneurs from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe, and its single-window clearance system.

The state cabinet also tweaked its policy for Information Technology (IT) and IT services.

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“The change was more clarificatory in nature, properly defining the role of backroom in IT, various sops in IT parks, sale of residential houses, inclusion of allied industries in IT services and so on,” an official from the industries department said.

First uploaded on: 10-02-2016 at 01:01 IST
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