Govt plans steps to promote SEZs

new delhi: the government is considering a slew of measures to promote the special economic zones. the sez developer will now be able to source goods from the domestic area and abroad without duties for development and operation of an sez. “efforts are on to ensure that units in sez have access to cheaper and quality power from sources of their choice,� commerce & industry minister murasoli maran said at a seminar on sez organised by ficci in the capital on thursday. similarly in the telecom sector, proposals to permit sez developers to set up an international gateway and submarine landing stations are also under consideration. “efforts are also on to draft suitable changes in the provisions of the coastal regulation zone so as to permit non-polluting and foreshore activities within the regulated zone,� said maran. he said that efforts are also on to ensure that the facilities of duty drawback and depb are available to any supplies made from the domestic tariff area to an sez and to exempt the sales made from a dta to sezs from the central sales tax. “declaring sezs as a port/icd as a transaction cost reduction measure and framing a unified regulation covering the operation of sez unit are under the active consideration of the government,� he said. addressing the ficci sez seminar the minister admitted that much needs to be done to fine-tune the sez scheme. “our aim to make sez’s engines of industrialisation and growth and there should not be any policy bugbears,� he said while assuring the industry of government’s commitment to reduce hassles in these zones, maran said the government, the states and the developers would have to speed up their work. stating that the government firmly believed that the new sezs would have to be largely private sector driven, he said so far approvals had been given for setting up of 13 new sezs in the country.