Even as anti-SEZ protests intensify across the country and the Supreme Court of India is still hearing a case to resolve contemporary India's most contentious issue after reservations, the Board of Approval for SEZs okays six new projects

The Indian government has cleared proposals for setting up four new Special Economic Zones (SEZs), including two by India's IT major Infosys Technologies. It also granted a one-year extension of in-principle approval to the controversial Mahamumbai SEZ promoted by Reliance Industries Limited.

In a meeting held in New Delhi on August 8, the Board of Approval (BoA) for SEZs considered eight SEZ proposals, including three for conversion of in-principle approvals to formal assent. The board approved four IT and IT-enabled services SEZs -- two of Infosys Technologies that will come up in Andhra Pradesh capital and IT hub Hyderabad, and in the state's Rangareddy district, and one each of Genpact India in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and Enfield Infrastructure Limited in South 24 Parganas, West Bengal.

The Centre also gave in-principle approval to a multi-product SEZ of Ispat Industries in Raigad, Maharashtra, and a biotech SEZ to be set up by Veritas Infrastructure Development, also in Maharashtra.

It, however, deferred two proposals from Adarsh Prime Projects and Blue Vision Construction.

Reliance's Mahamumbai SEZ proposal, while getting the nod, was reduced in size to 5,000 hectares, according to new SEZ guidelines. Earlier approval was given for 10,000 hectares.

BoA Chairman and Commerce Secretary G K Pillai clarified that the rule enforcing a limit of 5,000 hectares, as decided by a Group of Ministers (GoM) in April this year, would be applicable to all SEZ proposals.

Stating that the Mahamumbai SEZ extension had been cleared by India's commerce ministry, Pillai said RIL had been asked to acquire land with the consent of landowners; no compulsory acquisition by the Maharashtra state government would be allowed.

Another nine proposals will be taken up for clearance at the BoA's next meeting, on August 30.

The total number of approvals cleared by the board is now close to 550. The commerce secretary said that, so far, formal approvals had been granted to 362 SEZs out of which 136 had been notified. So far, over Rs 45,377 crore had been invested in these notified SEZs that were providing direct employment to over 38,405 people, he added.

In a related development, the Chief Justice of India has indicated that the country's Supreme Court will settle all legal issues regarding acquisition of land for SEZs in various parts of the country. On August 6, the Chief Justice issued a notice on various petitions, including one moved by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Ventures.

Source: The Hindu, August 9, 2007
Business Standard, August 7, 2007