The government is soon likely to notify the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) reforms, which seeks to ease land requirement norms and provide for an exit policy. The government had considered that there are acute difficulties in aggregating large tract of uncultivable land lying vacant to set up SEZs.
In the supplementary Foreign Trade Policy (FTP), the government had announced sops for SEZs. For multi-product SEZs, the minimum land requirement has been brought down from 1,000 hectares to 500 hectares and for sector-specific SEZs; it has been brought down to 50 hectares. Further, there would be no minimum land requirement for setting up IT\ITES SEZs, besides easing of the minimum built-up area criteria.
The government has notified about 390 SEZs so far in different parts of the country, which have provided employment to about one million people. Among these, 170 functional SEZs export oriented enclaves, have attracted an investment of over Rs 2.36 lakh crore and exports from them totaled Rs 4.76 lakh crore in 2012-13, a growth of over 2,000 percent over the 7 years period.
SEZ is a geographical region that is designed to export goods and provide employment and possess special economic regulations that are different from other areas in the same country. Moreover, these regulations tend to contain measures that are conducive to foreign direct investment. Conducting business in a SEZ usually means that a company will receive tax incentives and the opportunity to pay lower tariffs.
