A decision to this effect was taken at the Cabinet meeting on Monday.

The Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Prithviraj Chavan, addressing the media after the meeting said that there would be 100 per cent refund of VAT paid by the companies. The units would also be exempted from paying any kind of non-agriculture tax and royalty on construction materials used in the SEZ, he said.

These decisions have been taken to bring more clarity in the administration of the SEZs as the Maharashtra SEZ Act is yet to be passed by the State Legislature, Mr Chavan said.

In Maharashtra, 117 SEZs have been given clearance by the Centre and of which 63 have been notified and out of notified SEZs, 24 zones are already functional.

E-GOVERNANCE POLICY

In a separate development, the Cabinet also gave clearance to the e-governance policy, which would be applicable to all the departments and undertakings of the State Government. They will need to keep about 0.5 per cent of their yearly budget for implementing e-governance projects.

Mr Chavan said that using e-governance as a tool, all the Government services would be implemented. Use of mobile network has also been incorporate in the policy so that the benefits of e-governance reach to a very large number of people.

The uses of biometrics and Aadhaar numbers have also been advocated in the policy. A new Government rule will make it compulsory for all the departments to provide their public services on the e-governance platform, he said.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine, India,  dated 14/09/2011