Jairam Ramesh positive on Kanpur SEZ

Ten years ago, Jairam Ramesh, now the Union minister of state for commerce, created a controversy when he said since the liberalisation started, 80 per cent of the investment in the country had gone to areas west of Kanpur and only 20 per cent to the east of Kanpur.

Now this week when Ramesh was asked about the skewed investment pattern and his position on the matter, he said it remained more or less the same, except that Bengal had started getting investment.

Ramesh was here to inaugurate the local office of the Federation of Indian Export Organisation.

He said if the leather exporters of the city gave a memorandum for the establishment of an SEZ, "it will be passed not in days but in hours and I shall personally do it".

Some exporters who are in the process of establishing factories in the leather technology park at Banther, 8 km from Kanpur, were keen that this should be converted into an SEZ and prepared to forego I-T exemption if such a move was undertaken.

But since one condition in the setting up of an SEZ is that it must be a greenfield project, Ramesh did not sound positive on this request, though he said he would "look into it".