SEZ policy: excerpts

SEZs- leading to the growth of labour intensive manufacturing industry: Out of the 404 formal approvals given till date, 137 approvals are for sector specific and multi product SEZs for manufacture of Textiles & Apparels, Leather Footwear, Automobile components, Engineering etc.. which would involve labour intensive manufacturing. The employment projected in the 172 SEZs notified so far is over 2142,089 additional jobs. SEZs are thus going to lead to creation of employment for large number of unemployed rural youth. Nokia and Flextronics electronics hardware SEZs in Sriperumbudur are already providing employment to 7932 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 3549 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 NASSCOM 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.