NEW DELHI: The Board of Approval (BoA) for Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which met here on Wednesday, cleared 16 out of 23 proposals for conversion of in-principle approval into formal approval but withheld a decision on the Navi Mumbai SEZ, jointly promoted by Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani and a senior company executive Anand Jain.

Prominent among the approved SEZs are two out of three proposals by Suzlon Infrastructure for high tech engineering products, IT/ITeS SEZ by DLF Ltd., aluminium SEZ by Vedanta and two proposals each by New Chennai Township Pvt. Ltd. and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (TIDCO). Also approved are IT SEZ proposals by Unitech High Tech Structures and Enfield Infrastructure, besides a biotech SEZ by Enfield Realtors, all in West Bengal. The Board has received 355 new applications of which 75 per cent are concentrated in seven states — Maharashtra (75) tops the list followed by Tamil Nadu (46), Karnataka (41), Haryana (30), West Bengal (27) and Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh (25 each). So far, 237 formal approvals {lcub}letters of approval{rcub} have been granted of which three were withdrawn or cancelled.

In sittings lasting till early June, the Board will take up over 100 of these applications. At the next meeting on May 31, a total of 40 proposals will be considered including the Tatas-promoted Gopalpur SEZ in Orissa and Genpact IT Zone in Andhra Pradesh. At the meeting on June 5, sources said, a similar number of cases could be taken up.

Out of 234 valid formal approvals by the BoA, the Government has notified 101. The maximum number of notified SEZs is in Andhra Pradesh (26), followed by Tamil Nadu (16), Karnataka (14) and Maharashtra (13). But Maharashtra tops the list in the number of formal approvals with 47, followed by Andhra Pradesh (44), Karnataka (27) and Tamil Nadu (25).

A formal SEZ approval is valid for three years within which the developers must take effective steps for implementation of the project. The BoA can extend the validity for another two years. The SEZ Act provides for suspension of the letter of approval and the appointment of an administrator to discharge the functions of the developer if the BoA feels that terms and conditions have been violated.

After the Nandigram firing the Centre has decided that pending applications for SEZs may be processed for in-principle and formal approvals and notifications subject to the condition that state governments would not undertake compulsory acquisition of land for these SEZs. Also, the upper limit of the area required for multi product SEZs is 5,000 hectares with state governments permitted to prescribe a lower limit and fix the minimum processing area at 50 per cent for both multi product and sector-specific SEZs.

The Ministry of Rural Development is reformulating amendments to the Land Acquisition Act to address all relevant issues including a comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation policy, ensuring livelihood to at least one person from every displaced family.

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