New Act for SEZs on the drawing board

ahmedabad: the centre has begun work on legislating a separate and comprehensive new act for the development of the special economic zones in the country. this could meet the long-standing demand by the developers of sezs in the country. though the government has identified large number of locations in the country to be developed as sezs, the developers of these zones have been stressing on the need for a separate law related to sezs. according to an estimate, the developers of these sezs are required to take as many as 46 clearances, right from local governing bodies to the central government level. in comparison, it takes only 15 days to get all clearances in china. all this paper work made the job of a developer difficult, the union minister of state for commerce and industry, rajeev pratap rudy, told et adding that it was with a view to make the job of a developer simple that the centre has now started working in this direction. according to him, the new act would encompass the provisions related to all the clearances, tax and other incentives to be extended to the developers and would include provisions regarding governance of these sezs. we might have a separate authority overlooking governance of all these sezs, mr rudy added. the sezs have been demanding a permission to appoint an administrator who would have majority control over the administration within the sez and coordinate all the issues with local, state and central government. mr rudy said that the government would also favourably consider the demand for separate labour laws for sezs. thus the basic issues before the government while formulating the new act would be those of power, environment, labour laws, administration and single-window clearance for units wanting to come into these zones, he said. of the sezs coming up in the country, maharashtra is to house five at dronagiri (navi mumbai), aurangabad, nagpur sinnar, kagal (kolhapur) and guhagar (ratnagiri). the other sezs would be located at nanungeri in tamil nadu, paradeep and gopalpur in orissa, badohi, kanpur and greater noida in uttar pradesh, indore in madhya pradesh, kakinada in andhra pradesh; hassan in karnataka and positra in gujarat. four of the export processing zones; santacruz, cochin in kerala and kandla and sachin in gujarat have been upgraded.

New Act for SEZs on the drawing board

AHMEDABAD: The Centre has begun work on legislating a separate and comprehensive new Act for the development of the special economic zones in the country.

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