Cabinet approves North-East Industrial Development Scheme

New Delhi, March 21 (IANS) The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday has approved the North East Industrial Development Scheme (NEIDS), 2017 with financial outlay of Rs 3,000 crore up to March 2020, an official statement said.

It said government will provide necessary allocations for remaining period of scheme after assessment before March 2020.

The NEIDS is a combination of the incentives covered under the earlier two schemes with a much larger outlay.

“In order to promote employment in the Northeast states, government is incentivising primarily the MSME sector through this scheme. Government is also providing specific incentive through the scheme to generate employment,” said the statement.

“All eligible industrial units, which are getting benefits of one or more components of other schemes of the Government of India, will also be considered for benefits of other components of this scheme,” it added.

Under the Scheme, new industrial units set up in the northeastern states including Sikkim will be provided incentives like Central Capital Investment Incentive for Access to Credit, amounting to 30 per cent of the investment in plant and machinery with an upper limit of Rs 5 crore on the incentive amount per unit, and Central Interest Incentive amounting to 3 per cent on working capital credit advanced by eligible banks/financial institutions for first 5 years from the date of production’s commencement.

There will also be Central Comprehensive Insurance Incentive, for full reimbursement of insurance premium on insurance of building and plant and machinery for five years from commencement of production, Goods and Service Tax (GST) Reimbursement to the extent of Central government share of CGST and IGST for five years from the same date, Income-Tax (IT) Reimbursement of Centre’s share of tax for first five years, Transport Incentive (TI) of 20 per cent of the cost of transportation including the subsidy currently provided by Railways/Railway PSU for movement of finished goods by rail, 20 per cent of cost of transportation for finished goods through Inland Waterways Authority of India and 33 per cent of cost of transportation of air freight on perishable goods (as defined by IATA) from the airport nearest to place of production to any airport within the country.

There will also be an Employment Incentive, where the government shall pay 3.67 per cent of the employer’s contribution to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) in addition to bearing 8.33 per cent Employee Pension Scheme contribution of the employer in the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Protsahan Yojana.

IANS