Assam’s finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the programme should stop families falling into debt to pay for daughters’ weddings.
He has allocated three billion rupees (£32m) for the next fiscal year for the gold programme which would buy 875kg of gold – enough for about 80,000 brides.
The programme would be limited to two women from each family with an income of less than 500,000 rupees (£5,400) a year.
Each bride would get a “tola”, or 11.66g, of gold.
The tea-growing northeastern state is run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is fighting for re-election in a national poll that has to be held by May.
The government’s popularity has taken a battering because of low farm incomes and a lack of jobs since it came to power in 2014.
The government announced cash handouts to farmers and tax cuts for the lower middle class last week.
The opposition Congress party has also offered inducements, including writing down farmers’ loans and promising to provide the unemployed with cash handouts in some of the states it controls if it wins power.
But handing out gold to brides is new.
Mr Sarma said in his budget speech: “A customary ritual which has been part of Assamese society for centuries is to gift a set of gold ornaments to one’s daughter as a blessing as she leaves her father’s home to start a new life.”
He added: “I feel that it’s my solemn responsibility to stand with those fathers who cannot afford to gift a set of gold ornaments.”
The government would buy the gold from the RBI and give it to the beneficiaries directly, Mr Sarma said.
Indian brides traditionally get gold, which helps make the country the world’s second-biggest buyer of the metal after
China.
The World Gold Council expects India to consume 750-850 tonnes of gold this year.
The government is also offering other incentives ahead of the election, including handing out electric bikes to girls who score at least 60% in school-leaving exams, for getting to places of higher studies.
Under the election law, the gift-giving has to stop once an election date is set.
