Open house on SEZs

New Delhi, Mar 3 (UNI) Mr Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, will hold an Open House interactive session with the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) stakeholders here tomorrow.

After extensive consultations with various Departments of the Central and State overnments and other stakeholders, SEZ Act and Rules were given effect last month.

Fifteen SEZs are in operation at present. These are at Kandla and Surat (Gujarat); Mumbai (Maharashtra); Cochin (Kerala); Noida (UP); three SEZs at Chennai and nearby (Tamil Nadu); Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh); Indore (Madhya Pradesh); Jaipur and Jodhpur (Rajasthan); and at Falta, Manikanchan and Salt Lake Electronic City (West Bengal).

Besides the 15 established SEZs, around 65 greenfield SEZs have been approved by the government spread across several states including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and the Union Territories of Delhi, Pondicherry and Chandigarh.

The SEZs already established as well as those approved for establishment are thus disbursed all over the country, both in economically not developed and not so developed locations.

The advantages of establishment of SEZs include generation of additional economic activity, promotion of exports of goods and services, promotion of investment from domestic and foreign sources, creation of employment opportunities and development of infrastructure facilities.

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