Retaining the minimum land requirement at 10 hectares for the infotech industry in the special economic zones, the Commerce Ministry hoped that it will be able to attract a trillion rupees flowing into these zones in the next three years and create employment in the country. Speaking after attending a meeting of Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on special economic zones (SEZs), Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said here toady that it was decided to retain the minimum land area requirement for information technology sector at 10 hectares and minimum built-up area of 100,000 square metres. For the gems and jewellery sector, the minimum land area requirement will be 10 hectares and 50,000 square metres of built-up area and for bio-tech and non-conventional energy, the minimum land area requirement will be 10 hectares and 40,000 square metres of built-up area, Nath said. FM had opposed the move to fix the minimum floor area to just 10 hectares for single product zones, as it would lead most units to corner the available space and the huge tax benefits available to SEZ units. Many infotech companies have already announced that they will convert their software park units into SEZs thus increasing their tax holidays by another 10 years. The finance ministry was against this move as low minimum area for SEZs will lead to a massive loss in tax revenues. The commerce ministry said today that for all other multi-product, multi-services and sector-specific zones, the land area requirement will remain the same as already notified in the SEZ Rules. Multi-product SEZs should have a minimum of 1000 hectares, multi-services a minimum of 100 hectares and any sector-specific SEZ should have a minimum 100 hectares. The EGoM, headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, has also stipulated that the processing area in SEZs will be 35 per cent. With the resolution of the issues relating to implementation of SEZs, the government expects a significant flow of investment into the zones. Approval has so far been given for setting up 164 new SEZs in the private sector and by the state governments.
