Recent amendments by the Ministry of Commerce to SEZ Rules 2006, in the form of 3rd Amendment Rules 2019, is a welcome measure towards promoting exports and earning foreign exchange by encouraging setting up of more multi-sector SEZs in small chunks of lands by the end of this financial year, VSEZ Development Commissioner A. Rama Mohan Reddy said on Wednesday.
“The decision would facilitate setting up of more industries across the country,” Mr. Reddy said.
India is in the third position in the world with 234 operational SEZs and 5,141 operational units, with investments of ₹5.09 lakh crore and exports worth ₹7.05 lakh crore generating an employment of 21.17 lakh employees during 2018-19.
The notification issued by the Department of Commerce on December 17 removes the age-old characterisation to SEZs made in the rules in 2006 to facilitate the flexibility in setting up of SEZs, said Mr. Reddy, who looks after setting up of SEZs in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Yanam.
According to the amendment to Rule 5, Sub-Rule 2 of Special Economic Zone Rules, all SEZs are now declared uniform and any SEZ can be allowed to be set up in over 50 hectares, which otherwise used to be 500 hectares, except IT/ITeS where minimum land area requirement is not specified but only the built-up area is specified.
Henceforth, all existing SEZs will become multi-sector SEZs. This removes the difficulty in search for availability of large chunks of land for setting up of a SEZ in multi-sector.
