The BJP government in West Bengal on Thursday announced the West Bengal Investment Promotion Policy, 2026, offering incentives for industries that employ more women, support for investment in plant and machinery, and fixed timelines for project approvals, The Hindu reported.
The policy takes effect from May 9, 2026, the day the State's first BJP government took office.
The incentives
The assistance on fixed capital investment in plant and machinery is capped at:
- 100% for regular units
- 110% for units in thrust sectors or priority areas
- 120% for thrust-sector units located in priority areas
It ends when the cap is reached or 10 years after commercial production begins, whichever is earlier. Thrust sectors include semiconductors and electronics, green hydrogen and waste-to-energy, emerging digital technologies, electric vehicles and batteries, defence, and food and marine processing.
Under a "jobs come first" approach, the State will reimburse 100% of the employer's EPF contribution for women and transgender employees in MSMEs for 10 years, and 75% for women in eligible service units.
Why it matters
The policy reverses course from the previous Trinamool Congress government, which passed the Revocation of West Bengal Incentive Schemes and Obligations Act in 2025, retroactively scrapping three decades of incentive schemes. "The previous government had cheated the industrialists," Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said.
Adhikari said the State would neither repeat the Left Front's forcible land acquisition nor the Trinamool's approach of asking industries to buy land without government support.
But the past is not fully settled. The backlog of incentives from earlier governments, estimated at ₹50,000 crore, is outside the policy's scope, Business Standard reported, and Adhikari cited the State's debt burden of ₹8 trillion as a limit on its room to spend.