About half of land notified for SEZs are lying vacant: Commerce Min

About half of the land out of 45,711 hectares notified for 373 special economic zones (SEZs) are lying vacant as on August 2017, Parliament was informed today.

The vacant land is primarily with private sector or state public sector unit developers, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry C R Chaudhary said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

He said that the land development and allotment of units by the developers are done based on the demand and market conditions.

"Out of total notified area of 45,711.64 hectares in respect of 373 notified SEZs, 23,779.19 hectares are lying vacant in these SEZs as on 30.08.2017," he added.

He also said that at present 223 SEZs are operational and 150 are non-operational in the country.

Replying to a separate question, he said that Comptroller and Auditor General of India in a report of 2014 observed that there were gaps in the projections about employment, investment and export from SEZs.

Those observations "were based on the performance of SEZs in the initial 5 - 6 years from the enactment of SEZ Act, 2005," he said.

The minister said that SEZs are essentially industrial infrastructure with long gestation period.

"However, significant growth has been registered in terms of employment, investment and export from SEZs thereafter," the minisgter added.

In 2017-18, exports from SEZs increased to Rs 5.81 lakh crore from Rs 5.23 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.