Tax Sops Galore In Maharashtra Biotech Policy

The Maharashtra government has cleared a biotechnology policy that offers a slew of financial incentives and tax benefits to those who set up biotech units in the state.

These include a lower tax rate under the value added tax (VAT) regime, twice the existing floor space index (FSI) for biotech units, exemption from stamp duty and registration fee and 30 per cent of the fixed capital investment.

The policy was placed in the state legislature last week after the state Cabinet cleared it.

Under the policy, biotech units can be set up in all regions of the state and will be eligible for incentives available in the state's second least developed regions. Units set up in regions where development has already occured (B, C and D) regions would be eligible for a second tier of incentives.

"These (incentives) include capital subsidy for small scale biotechnology units and refund of octroi and similar levies," the policy draft states. Apart from this the draft promises that twice the admissible FSI would be made admissible for units in parks promoted by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and other public bodies and other yet to be designated locations.

A senior government official said: "The original draft policy offered the sales tax floor rate for the next five years for biotech products. But with the VAT regime -- to be implemented by April 1, 2002, -- the government has decided to offer a very liberalised scheme under this regime which will be on a par with the other incentives offered to biotech units set up in the state."

The policy also notes: "New units and the subsequent expansion of existing units will be exempted from payment of stamp duty and registration fees in the developing and backward regions of the state. In other areas, such exemption would be extended to units in biotech parks promoted by public bodies. In private parks, 50 per cent of such stamp duty and registration fees would be waived. In addition, only 10 per cent of the admissible stamp duty would be payable on property transactions resulting from amalgamation of biotech companies."

The policy also offers incentives for "centres of excellence." According to the policy draft: "The government will encourage setting up world class 'centres of excellence' which will cover all aspects of cutting edge R&D in the emerging areas of life sciences and technology. To faciliate this, the state will offer land at concessional rates to such centres of excellence in the area of biotechnology, and norms will be set to define such centres that would be subject to scrutiny and approval on an individual basis."