18 SEZs get final approval, 13 get in-principle nod

The central government's board of approvals (BoA) for special economic zones (SEZs) has given formal approval to 18 proposals and in-principle nod to 13 others including Posco's Rs 53,000 crore steel SEZ in Orissa.

Posco's SEZ would be spread over an area of 1,601 hectares.

With today's decision, the number of SEZs that have got final approval has gone up to 181, according to an official release issued here.

State government representatives present at the BoA meeting confirmed that all the zones cleared today would come up on waste, barren or single crop land, the release said.

Besides, 6 more SEZs, which have already got government approvals, were notified today taking the total number of zones that have been notified to 32.

The biggest SEZ notified today belonged to Essar Group at Hazira in Gujarat. The SEZ would be dedicated to engineering products and would be spread over an area of 247.5 hectares. Zydus's 48.83 hectare pharma SEZ in Ahmedabad was also notified along with four IT SEZs.

This was the fifth meeting of the BoA since the SEZ Act came into force in February this year. The Board will hold three more meetings over the next ten days to clear pending applications for setting up SEZs.