INRnews - Indian Real Estate & Property News

The study reveals that the International investors look towards India and China constituting almost 40% of the world population as the most opportune places for investments because of the inherent market potential as well as availability of youth that can be skilled for economic Growth. Both China and India have been registering over 10% of Growth in the industrial sectors.

The SEZ policy of the Government is gaining strong footing. The key finding of the study reveals that establishment of SEZs and the operation of the units in the few SEZs that have been established are having a positive impact:

    * Most of the States have their SEZs policies, Acts, Rules in place. However since the policy and guidelines are an evolving process the Centre as well as most of the States are working towards creating frameworks that further economic development and ensure rehabilitation of the affected families.
    * The Government's step to reformulate the Land Acquisition Act as well as evolve a Rehabilitation and Resettlement policy is in the right direction and once addressed in a comprehensive manner will accelerate the investments and economic activity. This needs to be taken up on an immediate basis as delays will deter investments.
    * No displacement of families in any of the functional SEZs, and none planned. Instead Training and Employment opportunities are being provided to the affected families.
    * The young population especially rural belonging to the area where the SEZs are established are being trained to take up jobs in the industries, thus merging the agriculture and industrial societies.
    * The development of enclaves requires that the infrastructure needs are addressed. This has created an awareness among the State Governments as well as local bodies to create adequate and strong infrastructure to support the economic activity to ensure their competitiveness in the global scenario.
    *  Only 0.1% land is being used for Industrial activities in India.
    *  With the participation of the Private Sector in the development of Industrial enclaves the study believes that the government can spend more time and money in creating infrastructure to support these activities
    * Most of the Developers interacted are willing to participate in the development of the surrounding social milieu and desire the Government policy on R&R as well as land acquisition are put in place at the earliest, so as to attract the eager Industrial investors to India.
    * A beginning has been made and if nurtured properly the SEZs can unleash tremendous growth potential.

It is projected that a growth in value of exports will be to the tune of 92.8% over the previous year to Rs 67,088 crores in the current year. It is also projected that by 2009 based on the proposals received and approved so far, an additional investment of Rs 2,59,159 crores will generate employment for almost 1.8 million people by 2009.

The 362 SEZs granted formal approvals once fully operational will generate over 4 million jobs (and this does not include the proposed multi product SEZs that are yet to come) out of which over 120 approvals are for sector specific and multi product SEZs  for manufacture of Textiles & Apparels, Leather Footwear, Automobile components, Engineering etc. mainly involving labour intensive manufacturing.

SEZs are thus going to lead to creation of employment for large number of unemployed rural youth. Visit by the EPCES team to different SEZs reveals interesting findings:

    * Nokia and Flextronics electronics hardware SEZs in Sriperumbudur are already providing employment to 3800 and 2069 persons, majority of which are women.
    * Hyderabad Gems SEZ for Jewellery manufacturing in Hyderabad has already employed 1200 girls majority of whom are from landless families, after providing training to them. They have a projected direct employment for about 30,000 persons.
    * Apache SEZ being set up in Andhra Pradesh will employ 20, 000 persons to manufacture 10,00,000 pairs of shoes every month. Current employment in Apache SEZ is 2500 persons.
    * Brandix Apparels, a Sri Lankan FDI project would provide employment to 60,000 workers over a period of 3 years. 

Even in the services sector, 12.5 million sq meters space is expected in the IT/ITES SEZs which as per the standards translates into 12.5 lakh jobs. It is, therefore, expected that establishment of SEZs would lead to fast growth of labour intensive manufacturing and services in the country.