BoA likely to approve 19 SEZs tomorrow

New Delhi, May 8 (UNI) The Board of Approvals (BoA) for SEZs is likely to clear 19 SEZs, including the Reliance's Navi Mumbai when it meets tomorrow, official sources said.

The BoA is also expected to approve DLF, Unitech and Suzlon SEZs and is unlikely to entertain any fresh applications.

Sources further said the Board can take up only a limited number of proposals at a time, meetings will be held subsequently to clear the backlog.

The BoA would be meeting after a gap of seven months for approving fresh proposals. It held a series of meetings in October last year clearing several proposals, taking the number of formal approvals to 212 and in-principle approvals to 152.

The meeting scheduled for mid-January this year had to be cancelled amidst reports of controversial land acquisition for SEZs by states and protests from farmers erupting in various parts of the country. The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on SEZs, which met on January 22, decided to freeze all fresh approvals.

The freeze was lifted after the empowered group of ministers (eGoM) met early last month to lift the ban on approval of SEZs, set a ceiling of 5,000 hectares by way of land acquisition for multi-product SEZ also prescribing a uniform processing area for both sector-specific and multi-product SEZs at 50 per cent.

Sources in the Commerce Ministry said there is a backlog of almost 500 cases which need to be cleared first and so applications received after April 5 will not be processed.

Clearing the backlog could take up to a year and therefore fresh applications might not be approved till then, they added.

The empowered group of ministers (eGoMs) decision to cap the size of SEZs at 5,000 hectares has not been approved by the Left parties who have insisted on a lower bar at 2,000 hectares is also likely to be discussed in tomorrow's meeting.

UNI