Though Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has given a thumbs-down to the SEZ bandwagon, the fact is that only one company, Gremach Infrastructure Equipment and Projects Ltd, has applied for setting up of a steel zone over 100 hectares of land in Patna.
Mineral-heavy Jharkhand is slightly better off: it has one approved automobile zone in Adityapur. The Gremach application will come up for consideration at the next Board Of Approval meeting on October 4. Proposals of another 66 companies spread across Gujarat, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are also slated to be discussed at the meeting.
The applicants and the zones which they have sought reveal some interesting trends. For starters, there seems to be a huge rush to set up information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITES) zones.
As many as 33 of the 66 companies want to set up such zones, most of them in Haryana. The Gurgaon-Manesar belt is the focus area, with other locations, including Dharuhera in Rewari district (that borders Rajasthan), Palwal, Ambala and Panipat.
The IT and ITES companies are also interested in Uttar Pradesh with seven of the 10 companies seeking permission to set up units there. There is one proposal for a free trade warehousing zone.
The mix of zones is slightly better in Gujarat, which has proposals to set up an agro-based chemicals zone, many multi-product zones, gems and jewellery, power, pharma, steel, textiles, apparels and biotechnology zones.
Many of the companies are associated with the real estate industry. They include Shashwat Homes Pvt Ltd, Calica Constructions, Kalpataru Properties, Shivganga Real Estate Holders Pvt Ltd, Gaurinandan Property Holders Pvt Ltd, City Gold Realty Pvt Ltd, Adani Townships and Real Estate, Aaloulik Constructions and Aakarshna Estates. Better known realty companies like Ansal, DLF, Unitech and Parsvnath are also in the fray.
From: www.business-standard.com
