Assam will provide ‘top-up’ incentives to electronics manufacturers: CM Sarma

Assam offers electronics manufacturers additional incentives, including 60% top-up, to set up facilities in the state.

Electronics manufacturers — including component manufacturers — will enjoy additional incentives on top of what they are already eligible to receive from the Union government if they set up facilities in Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told semiconductor industry representatives and media personnel in Delhi on Monday (May 26, 2025). Mr. Sarma will hold similar roundtables with industry members in Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru.

“Whatever the Government of India will provide” under programmes like the Electronics Manufacturing Component Scheme, “we’ll actually top up with 60% additional incentive,” Mr. Sarma said, matching three-fifths of the Centre’s contribution.

Industry players are being encouraged with the Union government’s Uttar Poorva Transformative Industrialisation Scheme, Mr. Sarma said, essentially giving them access to at least three schemes to ease their entry to the state.

Jagiroad, home to a former industrial belt along National Highway 37, is being rebuilt by Assam’s government as an electronic city to house the Tata plant, where semiconductors will be “packaged” and tested, and will also host foreign firms who will supply the plant and service its equipment. “We’re negotiating a big loan from the Asian Development Bank so that the city can fulfill all the requirements,” Mr. Sarma said, adding that an existing loan had already been approved to set up an Assam Skills University. 

The cluster is located ideally, Mr. Sarma said, with an airport and railway station at a 45 kilometre distance. An outer ring road around Guwahati to improve this connectivity has also been approved by the Union government,” Mr. Sarma said. 

A major component of Assam’s electronics manufacturing policies is to encourage talent from the State to return and work there. “We have a very good human resource base because we have an IIT in Guwahati, an IIIT in Guwahati, a good network of engineering colleges, and the Government of India has also declared the National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT) a deemed university,” Mr. Sarma said.

Mr. Sarma said that the State government’s current electronics incentive corpus of ₹25,000 can be disbursed “in one month also,” and that first movers — after getting the homologous incentive from the Union government — would benefit from quick approvals for these funds too. “We don’t have a problem of plenty,” Mr. Sarma said. “You can talk, customise, and address requirements” with private firms.