Ten new proposals for setting up special economic zones, including some big ticket ones like that of Larsen and Toubro and the Navi Mumbai SEZ’s (NMSEZ) gems and jewellery zone got the government’s approval today. The Board of Approval (BoA) for SEZs, chaired by commerce secretary GK Pillai, also cleared proposals for 11 investors to join as co-developers in projects like that of Mundra in Gujarat in its meeting with various developers today.

The Gujarat-based Essar SEZ project, which was earlier caught up in the issue of overlap between the domestic tariff area and the SEZ area, was also given the go-ahead by the board today.

Three Mundra SEZs in Gujarat, promoted by the Adani Group, having a total investment of Rs 1,00,000 crore, will now be merged together. Following a decision taken by the empowered group of ministers on SEZs, chaired by external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, the board today took this decision since the combined area of the three zones exceeded the 5,000-hectare ceiling on a single SEZ.

The new Mundra SEZ, which is now the country’s biggest SEZ, will now induct six investors as co-developers. One of the SEZs to be merged into the combined entity is setting up a 300-MW power plant to be commissioned next month, Pillai told reporters here after the meeting.

As for the performance of SEZs in view of the global slowdown, Pillai said exports from SEZs were good this year and are likely to cross Rs 90,000 crore this fiscal compared to Rs 66,638 crore last year. Exports during April-December 2008 period are estimated at Rs 67,000 crore.

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