The Hindu Business Line : SEZ approval board may not take up fresh applications

New Delhi April 17 The Board of Approvals (BoA) for SEZs, which is holding its meeting on May 9 here, is not going to consider any fresh application other than focusing on conversion of in-principle approval to formal approval in 19 cases.

The BoA's forthcoming meeting assumes importance because it is being convened for the first time after the empowered group of Ministers (eGoM) met early this month to lift the ban on approval of SEZs, set a ceiling of 5,000 hectares by way of land acquisition for multi-product SEZ and also prescribing a uniform processing area for both sector-specific and multi-product SEZs at 50 per cent.

Officials in the Department of Commerce said the most important among the 19 cases include Navi Mumbai SEZ for multi-product, Vedanta Aluminium of Jharsuguda (Orissa) and Velankanni Information System for information technology and IT-enabled services in Sriperumbudur.

Formal approvals

Barring the 19 cases which would be vetted in the forthcoming BoA, the board has granted so far 234 formal approvals to establish SEZs in different parts of the country, entailing approximately 33,808 hectares of land.

Asked about the land acquisition of 10,000 hectares by private companies in Gujarat and Haryana, the officials said that as per the record of the BoA, which gives the notification after verification of land records, none of the companies had far acquired the high figure of 10,000 hectares for a single SEZ so far and also the upper ceiling of 5,000 hectares set by the eGoM too was based on this ground reality.

They further clarified that where a same company wants to get extended stretch of lands beyond this permissible ceiling, it could also float another company, which is legally permitted.

The new company had to go to BoA for fresh approval, they said. But they hasten to add that none of the big companies had so far acquired such a vast tract of land in one go.