Special Economic Zones: Andhra, Punjab, TN among states ready with land parcel data to woo investors – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: The government’s move to keep land parcels ready for investors to quickly decide on investment destinations is expected to begin in close to half-a-dozen states, while it is seeking to gradually move to a single-window clearance mechanism.
States such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Odisha are among early movers and will come on board over the next few months, government sources told TOI.
Already a massive exercise has been undertaken to map land across states, which could be part of special economic zones, industrial corridors or industrial areas, and make it available online for investors to quickly decide on the location of their proposed plant. Availability of land, in the wake of
the land acquisition law, has been a major concern for industry and the government is seeking to address the concern by using available tracts.
“These states have moved faster and some of them are also the more industrialised states,” a source said. These industries can also become vendors for new investors, something that the government is trying to do by creating clusters for products such as automobiles, electronics and pharmaceuticals,. In fact, creating plug-and-play facility for investors is a key theme of the plan, for which the commerce and industry ministry is also moving a proposal to the Union Cabinet so that more investments can be undertaken.
In case of single-window clearance mechanism, which has been in the works for several months now, the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) is seeking to address the technological issues, given that several ministries have to be brought on to the same platform, at the Centre as well as states.
Instead of integrating websites of various agencies, from tax and environment to corporate affairs and commerce, a central platform is proposed to be put in place, where an investor can put in its query and it can be addressed by the concerned department. A similar exercise will need to be undertaken for the states too, officials said. In the past, efforts to have a single-window mechanism have not yielded results.