The government may look at relaxing 5,000 hectare-ceiling on land for Special Economic Zones once the the Land Acquisition Act is in place, Commerce Secretary G K Pillai said.
“Now that the new Relief & Rehabilitation policy has come into being, the government may think of relaxing the upper limit of 5,000 hectares for SEZs (once the land acquisition law is enacted), he told reporters on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit.
The rules would be relaxed, “especially for multi-product SEZs”, 34 of which are already in place. Three to four of these SEZs have an area of 5,000 hectares, including that of Reliance Industries and DLF.
Pillai said the land acquisition bill was supposed to be tabled in Parliament.
“We will take a view on this and have a fresh look (after the bill is passed) on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Pillai said farmers would also be given an option of becoming stakeholders in the company that comes up on their land.
He exports from SEZs are likely to touch Rs 67,000 crore by the end of this year and they are at present, Rs 33,000 crore.
FDI in SEZs during the last 18 months have touched three billion dollars and are expected to go up three-to-four fold in the one and half years, he said, adding that by 2009-end, these zones would have created six lakh jobs.