SEZ board clears 24 proposals, spells out norms for tax sops

NEW DELHI: The board of approval (BoA) for special economic zones (SEZs) has formally approved 24 proposals including Kandla Port Trust’s port-based multi-product SEZ in Gujarat, Suncity Haryana and Metro Valley’s IT SEZs in Gurgaon and Parsvnath developers, Ansal Properties’ and Ascendant Estates’ IT/ITES SEZs in Gurgaon.

The inter-secretary level body gave in-principal clearance to 20 proposals at its meeting on Friday. The board considered 67 proposals from Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and 25 proposals deferred in earlier meetings from Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

The government also officially notified on Friday that the list of authorised operations in the SEZs eligible for tax concessions, exemptions and drawback. Proposals which received formal approvals are Global Health’s bio-tech SEZ and Bentex Tower’s multi-services SEZs in Gurgaon, Adani Power’s power sector specific SEZ in Gujarat, two IT/ITES proposals from K Raheja Universal’s in Maharashtra, Platinum Holding’s hardware & software SEZ in Tamil Nadu and IT Infras Services’ IT/ITES SEZ in Noida.

Friday’s meeting was the last in a series of five meetings where about 200 pending proposals were considered. According to commerce secretary GK Pillai, with the latest clearances, the total number of formal approvals for SEZ proposals has gone up to 237, while in-principle approvals stand at 170.