UP gets first proposal for SEZ in 2 years

It is after a gap of two years that the UP government has received an application for setting up an SEZ. The developer,Artha Infratech,which is a group of real estate developers from the NCR region,has shown possession of the basic requirement of 10 hectares,presented documents to show its net worth of over Rs 150 crore,and promised investment of about Rs 600 crore in the proposed SEZ.

The new SEZ has been proposed to come up in Sector Tech-zone IV of Greater Noida,and to offer services like customer interactive centres,digital streaming services,web hosting services,engineering,design and digital engineering,networking infrastructure,etc.

“This is significant because following recession,a large number of private players who had taken approval to develop SEZs in 2007,2008 or 2009 could not begin their operations following a fall in international demand for products and services. Some had also expressed their desire to drop out despite getting all approvals. Moreover,no fresh applications came in the last two years that fulfilled the basic criteria for developing SEZ.” said a senior government officer.

Between 2006 and 2009,about 35 SEZs were cleared by the Uttar Pradesh government,and these also got approval from the Government of India. These included government-promoted SEZs like the carpet SEZ in Bhadohi,and textile,engineering,leather SEZs in Kanpur. In 2008 alone,18 IT or IT-enabled services SEZs were approved.

However,despite such large-scale interest shown by the private as well as public sectors,at present Uttar Pradesh has only seven operational SEZs.

Of these,one multi-sector SEZ of the Government of India is operational for the past 20 years and another is a UPSIDC-developed handicrafts SEZ in Moradabad,which is operational since 2003.