INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - FEBRUARY 2007
The Month that was ...

BOARD OF APPROVAL GIVES NOD FOR 30 NOTIFIED SEZS

The board of approval (BoA) on special economic zones (SEZs) has accorded co-developer status to a number of developers of notified SEZs including Motorola and Foxconn, Mahindras and Ascendas and Petronet LNG and Kochi Port Trust. In a meeting, the BoA also approved authorised operations for 30 notified SEZs.

Although the empowered group of ministers (eGoM) on SEZs had frozen fresh approvals of SEZs as well as notifications of approved SEZs in its meeting last week, the commerce department had managed to get its permission to hold BoA meetings to give required clearances to the 63 notified SEZs. Notified SEZs cannot start operations till their authorised operations are approved by the BoA. SEZs being developed by more than one developer need to get a co-developer status from the BoA. In the meeting of the BoA, co-developer status was accorded to Motorola India and Foxconn India Developer for the SIPCOT SEZ at Sriperumbadur, Chennai. Authorised operations in respect of these co-developers were also approved.

Co-developer status was also granted to the three co-developers in the Mahindra world city SEZ in Chennai, including Mahindra Integrated Township, Mahindra Holiday Resorts and Ascendas Mahindra IT Park Private.

Petronet LNG was approved as a codeveloper in Cochin Port Trust while Integrated Warehousing Kandla Project Development Private Ltd was given co-developer status for a free trade warehousing zone in Kandla SEZ.

Others to get co-developer status include Leela Lace Holdings Pvt Ltd as co-developer in Info Park SEZ at Kochi and DLF Assets Pvt Ltd as co-developer in the DLF Info City Developers (Chennai), IT/ITES SEZ in Ramapuram, Chennai .

IT and ITES SEZs which got clearances for authorised operations include HCL Technologies Ltd at Noida, Quarkcity India Pvt Ltd at Mohali, Wipro Ltd in Pune, M L Dalmiya and Co Ltd at Kolkata, Ansal IT City and Parks Ltd at Greater Noida and Satyam Computers Services Ltd at Bahadurpally Village, Andhra Pradesh.

Other SEZs which received clearances for authorised operations include Zydus Infrastructure Pvt Ltd's pharmaceuticals SEZ at Gujarat, MIDC agro products SEZ at Latur, Maharashtra, Fab City SPV (India) Limited for a sector specific SEZ for manufacturing and developing semiconductor facility at Hyderabad and Whitefield Paper Mills Limited for writing and printing paper mill SEZ at Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh.

The BoA cannot take up fresh SEZ proposals for consideration till the eGoM holds its next meeting and takes a view on a number of issues including land acquisition by states and possible ceilings and caps on SEZ numbers. A decision to freeze all fresh proposals and notifications was taken by the e-GoM last week following wide-scale protests from farmers and various political parties over land-acquisition.