Govt gives more time to 7 SEZs to implement projects

New Delhi, Aug 26 The government has given more time to seven SEZ developers and units including Kerala State IT Infrastructure and Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation to execute their projects.

The decision was taken by the Board of Approval (BoA) headed by Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia in its meeting on August 12.

The BoA is a 19-member inter-ministerial body that deals with SEZ-related matters. It provides single window clearance mechanism to developers and units in these zones.

The board has granted one more year to Kerala State IT Infrastructure, which is setting up IT/ITeS SEZ in the state.

"The board after deliberations extended the validity till September 18, 2017," the minutes of the BoA meeting said. Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation has planned IT/ITeS special economic zone in Andhra Pradesh.

For this project, the BoA after deliberations "condoned the delay and extended the validity of the formal approval up to July 1, 2018," it said.

SEZs are exports hubs, which contribute about 16 per cent to the country's total outbound shipments. The Commerce Ministry is taking steps to revive investors' interest in these zones.

It has asked the Finance Ministry to extend sops like rollback or reduction in the minimum alternate tax. Exports from special economic zones (SEZs) logged a marginal growth of 0.77 per cent at Rs 4.67 lakh crore in 2015-16.

The exports from such 204 zones were Rs 4.63 lakh crore in 2014-15. Highest number of SEZs are operational in states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra.

PTI