The government will next week consider requests from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Group firms and other companies for extension of validity for their different special economic zones.
According to the SEZ Act, 2005, there is no upper limit for land acquisition by state governments. It also allows acquisition of wasteland and single-crop land, putting negative impact on common property resources like land, forest and water bodies.
Out of 389 SEZs notified, 170 are operational, Export Promotion Council for export-oriented units and special economic zones (EPCES) said in a statement.
The opposition questioned the earmarking of a substantial 60,000 hectares of land for these zones, saying it was far beyond the necessity. Ravi Shankar Prasad (BJP) said half of the land was being handed out to non-processing zones, which the country's "land sharks" were acquiring with imputiny to set up hotels, restaurants and malls.
The International Monetary Fund on Thursday asked India to "very carefully" look at the much-touted Special Economic Zones, saying the giveaways and tax sops to the zones could divert industrial activity from the rest of the country.
A day after the promoters of Adani Group prepaid $1.1 billion loans, one of the group's listed entities - Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) - announced that it would prepay loans of up to Rs 5,000 crore by next month-end so as to improve its financial metrics. The company is targeting an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) of around Rs 15,000 crore this financial year. This was revealed by Karan Adani, chief executive officer (CEO) and whole-time director of APSEZ, while announcing the September-December 2022 results.
The Bill has proposed that zones notified by the end of March 2012, will get income tax benefits. For units, there is a two-year additional window, with those commencing operations by March 31, 2014, likely to get an exemption.
The Environment Ministry on Thursday issued a show cause notice to Mundra Port & SEZ Limited, a private port and special economic zone being developed on the west coast of the country, for alleged violation of the provisions of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification.
The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act of 2005, which completed two years on February 10, 2008, has facilitated a 200 per cent rise in exports from these zones during the period, and has led to an incremental investment of Rs 70,416 crore (Rs 704.16 billion).
As per the SEZ Act, 2005, and SEZ Rules, 2006, SEZ units are entitled to exemption from duty of customs and excise, exemption from service tax and VAT, exemption from stamp duty and registration fees and exemption from electricity duty, besides income tax exemption on export profits.
A key meeting of senior United Progressive Alliance government ministers and political parties, including the Congress and its Left allies, failed to secure a political consensus on the showpiece Special Economic Zones initiative.
The seized hazardous cargo containers were en route from Karachi in Pakistan to Shanghai in China, and the containers were not destined for Mundra Port.
The extent of disillusionment can be gauged from the fact that even tax sops for units in the SEZs could not help revive the dampening spirit. The year has seen a change in the sentiment, which has turned for the worse in the last three-four months. Scores of big corporate houses were making a beeline for developing special economic zones, billed as the new investment destination that assured tax-free income.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd climbed eight spots to the 45th rank, the highest for an Indian company on Forbes' latest Global 2000 list of public companies worldwide.
Three special economic zones promoted by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and his close aide Anand Jain in the same area have been listed for clearance on Friday.
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd on Thursday announced its plans to set up a special economic zone at Jaipur entailing an investment of $2 billion.
The Board of Approvals on Wednesday gave final clearance to 15 Special Economic Zones but deferred a decision on the Navi Mumbai zone promoted by Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani and Anand Jain.
The Reliance Industries special economic zone at Jamnagar in Gujarat, which had been given a sector-specific status (petroleum and petro-chemicals) earlier, was today modified to a multi-product zone by the board of approval, which met in New Delhi.
Land acquisition for special economic zones is stuck because of a year-old directive by the Empowered Group of Ministers that bars state governments from carrying out compulsory acquisition of land for the zones.
The trouble is, in backward areas where infrastructure is weak, the impact of SEZ on access to water would be even more serious.
The OCCRP report alleges that at one point, EIFF and EMRF held free-floating shares ranging from 8 per cent to nearly 14 per cent in the four Adani Group companies.
The government on Wednesday granted approval to Nokia, Wipro, Hewlett Packard, Reliance, Biocon, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Mahindra and Mahindra, Reliance energy and Adani Group's to set up Special Economic zones.
Commerce ministry will issue notices to 57 formally approved SEZs. If the notices are not replied to, the approvals will stand cancelled.
The officials also said that the ministry of commerce and industry had recommended the Maharashtra government to take back the land acquisition notification that it had issued. The zone has been given in-principle approval by the BoA, as RIL is yet to acquire the requisite land.
The proposal was mooted by the department of industrial policy and promotion in the ministry of commerce and industry.
India's private and state government-owned ports (non-major ports) continued to grow faster than those owned by the Centre (major ports) through the first three quarters of 2023-24 (FY24), cargo handling data shows. At 604 million metric tonnes (mmt), cargo at major ports grew by 5 per cent between April and December, while non-major ports' cargo traffic growth was 11 per cent at 531 mmt. During December 2023, central government-owned ports in India handled cargo volumes of 69.9 mmt, a tepid year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth of 0.7 per cent.
While most other big companies like Tata, Mahindra and Reliance remain non-committal on FDI, Nikhil Gandhi was the lone voice supporting 51 per cent FDI through the automatic route.
The government has issued fresh guidelines allowing a power plant the fiscal exemptions of the Special Economic Zone if it is set up in the 'processing' area of the tax-free zone.
Even as Left parties have demanded a review of the tax concessions provided to SEZs, the DoT has sought extension of excise duty exemptions to industrial units set up in telecom-specific SEZs.
Seeking a faster roadmap for Special Economic Zones, Minister of Commerce and Industry Arun Jaitely said on Wednesday that the process of getting the zones ready should not face roadblocks.\n\n\n\n
Real estate developer K Raheja Universal Private Ltd wants to scrap one of their notified special economic zones and also surrender a part of another zone, citing lack of demand from the information technology sector.
The next six months may see the Centre notifying 100 special economic zones.
Reflecting the enthusiasm among private companies for setting up special economic zones, the board of approval for SEZs will consider over 100 proposals on March 17 - its first meeting since the implementation of SEZ Act and Rules last month.
This decision will come as a relief to Essar's multi-product port-based SEZ project in Hazira as well as of Adani Group's zone in Mundra, which the revenue department felt was not built on vacant land when it was notified, and hence it had violated the law. Both the zones are in Gujarat.
For tapping high growth units in special economic zones, a host of Indian banks had established offshore banking units in 2003-04 in these duty free enclaves
Even in the midst of a liquidity crunch, Special Economic Zones still remain a lucrative investment option among developers. The government on Monday cleared 22 of these tax-free industrial enclaves.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads an Empowered Group of Ministers on Special Economic Zones, is likely to consult Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve the dispute between finance and commerce ministries over tax exemption for export profits from the zones.
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