SEZ promoters demand additional time from BoA

24 May 2011 Evaluate

It seems, once much hyped attraction and interest of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) is slowly fading among the industrial houses and promoters in India, there was enormous hurry to set up SEZs across the country after the idea got concretized once the SEZ Act came into force in February 2006. However, apart from land acquisition-related issues the introduction of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) to be levied on the developer and occupiers of SEZs, effective this fiscal, seems to be the reason behind the apathy and now around 53 promoters including Parsvnath SEZ, Unitech Realty Projects and Uttam Galva Steels developers have requested more time from the government for completing their project.

Other developers like Reliance Haryana SEZ, NIIT Technologies, Navi Mumbai SEZ , Indiabulls Industrial Infrastructure and Mahindra and Mahindra have also appealed for extra time from the Board of Approval (BoA), headed by Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar, a 19 member inter ministerial body that look after the SEZs related issues.  In addition to this, 6 promoters have already approached the ministry of commerce for surrendering their projects; these include Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation for its sector specific SEZ and Satyam Computer Services for its IT/ITeS zone. The promoters and developers who applied for de-notification are giving the rationales like global economic slowdown, problems related to land acquisition and imposition of minimum, alternative tax (MAT) on the development and units.

The 46th meeting of BoA is scheduled to be held on May 31. At its last meeting held on March 25, the board had deferred the decisions on some applications, most of which were from poll-bound states like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Assam. So far, 377 SEZs have been formally notified, of which 133 are in operation. SEZs have emerged as a major source for attracting investment and increasing exports in the country and Exports from these zones grew by 43.1 per cent during the 2010-11 fiscal. However, uncertainty over tax exemptions to new SEZs has led declining interest in the tax free enclaves. Investors are also cautious about the new draft Direct Taxes Code (DTC).

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