At least 12 out of the 16 proposals approved so far in Gujarat for setting up as many Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the IT segment have been bagged by real estate companies that have scarcely little to do with IT or related areas.

The implications are obvious against the background of DLF Ltd, India’s largest real estate developer, successfully getting its IT SEZ in Delhi de-notified by the government even after its in-principle approval as an IT SEZ project. This would now enable the company to use 25 acres of land that the government provided for the IT SEZ, for real estate development.

With 16 already approved, IT SEZs will corner the largest chunk of the total 60 to come up in Gujarat.

Some instances: One of the IT SEZs is to be set up by the Raheja Group on an area of 27.85 hectares at Koba, Gandhinagar through its developer company Aqualine Properties Pvt Ltd. This is how the group describes itself on its website: “K Raheja Corp is a success story spanned across decades and continues to achieve higher targets relentlessly for quality performance and service in diverse fields of real realty business, hospitality sector and retailing outfits…”’

The group's vice president A D Prabhu declined to comment on the issue when contacted and suggested talking to its marketing director, who remained unavailable.

Bhavin Mehta, Head (Business Department) of Ganesh Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., which is the developer company for a 54-hectare IT/ITES SEZ at Dascroi, Ahmedabad also declined to comment on the issue.

... contd.