The Hindu Business Line : Decision on 18 SEZ proposals deferred

New Delhi, May 1 The Board of Approvals for Special Economic Zones (SEZ), which met on Thursday to discuss 18 proposals for clearance, deferred decision till May 16 when it would meet again. The BoA, which met under the chairmanship of the Commerce Secretary Mr Gopal K. Pillai, had several important SEZs, including the Bangalore International Airport SEZ, two SEZ proposals at Noida and Pune each by DLF Ltd and two SEZs of Ansal Properties and Infrastructure Ltd in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

When contacted, Mr Pillai told Business Line here that the Board had deferred the decision on all of them until its next meeting slated on May 16 here. He said the other issues such as increasing the processing area for SEZs and other issues related to SEZ developers would also be discussed at the next meeting.

So far, 453 formal approvals for setting up SEZs have been accorded under the SEZ Act, 2005, out of which 210 SEZs have been notified. These cover multi-product and sector-specific SEZs for manufacturing industries in areas such as textiles and apparels, leather and footwear, gems and jewellery, engineering, agro and food processing industry pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Official data show that physical exports from SEZs in 2007-08 were of the order of Rs 64,623 crore, registering a growth of over 87 per cent against physical exports of Rs 34,615 crore by these units in 2006-07.

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