With an aim to boost manufacturing further, the government is planning to create coastal economic zones along the country's 7,500-km long coastline covering many states, ports and special economic zones having uniform policy. The idea is, however, at the conceptual stage. After firming up the proposal, the ambitious plan could be announced by the Prime Minister himself like in the case of 'Make in India'. In the present scenario, these coastal economic zones could come up in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
Though, there are special economic zones where investors can set up their manufacturing base and get incentives like tax exemption, speedy regulatory clearance, round the clock power and security. The government wants to create coastal economic zones where investor will be provided host of incentives and facilities uniformly across many town, cities, ports and states.
These coastal economic zones would attract investment as well as workforce in order to create facilities to manufacture not only for domestic production but for exports in large quantities. The government thinks that there should be a port-led development as was done in China where cities were granted special status of open coastal cities which enjoyed special policies of the government. Though India has many ports, there is no cluster or a section of coastline that enjoys special status and incentives.