The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), which creates infrastructure for industry in the state, in its policy document stated that there are three models adopted for setting up SEZs — those that would be developed by the MIDC, those in public private partnership and the ones that were to be developed by joint ventures. What worries the ministry is that the investors of 16 approved SEZs have withdrawn their proposals in the last one year. The new industrial policy, which will also deal with promoting SEZs, will be introduced in the next state session. "Of the 117 SEZs which were approved, only 63 have materialised and only 24 SEZs are functioning,” said MIDC CEO Dr K Shivaji. The failure of SEZs has been attributed to the hurdles in land acquisition which has led to cost escalation of projects or forced investors to withdraw and the new land acquisition bill is likely to make matters more complicated as it makes market price mandatory for land acquired from the farmers for projects.

“This sop is likely to see industries continue with their SEZs in the state and not pull out. Earlier MIDC had proposed to cancel about 20 of the 30 SEZs indentified by the state terming it non-feasible because of the heavy taxation in the proposed direct tax code and slow improvement in the economy of the US and European countries,'' said Shivaji.

While in Pune Ajit Relekar, regional officer of SEZ and IT, said that earlier there were 17 proposed SEZs in the district of which 13 are monitored by MIDC. “Though a few of them have approached for lay out sanctions there are others who have yet to take a decision on starting the SEZ,” said Relekar. He said sops would definitely benefit the SEZ.

Dr Shivaji said SEZ had been proposed anticipating demand for products in engineering and information technology sectors and with the demand not being there, the companies were beginning to pull out.

“We had denotified five SEZ and the rest would be denotified after completion of the routine procedure,” he said. The finance department had maintained that fiscal deficit of the state was around Rs 22,000 crore and investment could have reduced the deficit, add financial department official. However industry officials are depending heavily on the domestic investors who are interested in independent investment.

“Areas such as Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur and Aurangabad, is much better than most other states. The 25 SEZs in the district that are in the formal stage of implementation have projected an aggregate investment of Rs 38,739 crore spanning 2,133 hectare.
 

Source: Indian Express, India,  dated 25/10/2011