Agencies Posted online: Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 1221 hours IST Updated: Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 1353 hours IST
New Delhi, July 12: The Board of Approval on Thursday gave conditional nod to the Navi Mumbai SEZ promoted by Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani, besides 20 other zones, despite a Parliamentary Committee seeking a freeze on fresh notifications.
The multi-product Navi Mumbai SEZ has been cleared with the condition that promoters should build, within a year, the infrastructure that would ensure contiguity on the 1,250 hectare land where it is coming up in Maharashtra, Commerce Secretary and Chairman of BoA G K Pillai said.
The Special Purpose Vehicle that is building the SEZ has also been prevented from allowing any unit to come up in the zone before underpasses and over bridges are constructed for meeting contiguity requirements, he said.
The Navi Mumbai SEZ proposal had been deferred twice by the BoA on issues of contiguity and rights of villages in the vicinity of the zone. Thursday's clearance came after all the issues were addressed.
In all, the Board gave formal approval to 21 cases and in-principle clearance to seven proposals. This takes the total SEZs with formal approvals to 360 of which 130 have been notified.
Other prominent cases which got formal approval include one from Hindalco for an aluminium SEZ in Orissa. The BoA also approved the first SEZ in Northeast.
"The multi-product zone proposed in Nagaland will come up over 400 hectares and land is in possession of the developers," Pillai said.
The BoA also gave in-principle nod to the 2,000 hectare multi-product SEZ in Chhindwara, Lok Sabha constituency of Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath.
Skil Infrastructure's 5,000 hectare multi product SEZ in Karnataka also got in-principle nod. The proposal had come up before the Board at the last meeting too but it was deferred.
Videocon's bio-technology SEZ in West Bengal and Unitech's IT SEZ in Haryana also got the nod. Parsvnath's bio-tech and pharma SEZ in Haryana were given formal approval.
Pillai said in the next two years 250 SEZs would be up and running.
He said 200 proposals for SEZs are pending before the state governments and the indications are that they were unlikely to be approved.
The BoA has cleared large number of cases in its last few meetings and now it was getting just about one fresh application a week. About two applications are being withdrawn every week. For the next meeting of the Board on August four, only three cases are listed.
New Delhi, July 12: The Board of Approval on Thursday gave conditional nod to the Navi Mumbai SEZ promoted by Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani, besides 20 other zones, despite a Parliamentary Committee seeking a freeze on fresh notifications.
