Saturday, May 20, 2006

SEZ

Driving to your job or to your college, I am sure each one of us has been fed up, at some point of time, by the traffic on Indian roads. Crawling ant like vehicles which have developed an intimate understanding of the movements of vehicles around it, find their way through traffic, with amazing efficiency. If you can drive on these Indian roads you can drive anywhere!

But at some point you might of wished for a sparkling tram, which could take you to work, passing through spaced out high rises and cool greenery too.

Looks like this might happen soon near you.

The new mantra for growth in India has been special economic zones (SEZ's). Under these, special zones are identified, they are provided with world class infrastructure, flexible labor laws, and this will be used for export based industries. This is the exact way that China has achieved it's economic growth, and now India is banking on it. Incidently the first SEZ in India was before that of China, but subsequently, we lost the path. There are around 100 applications for SEZ pending before the government.

The biggest SEZ in India is planned near Navi Mumbai, called Maha Mumbai, by Reliance and the Maharashtra government.

(open the linking article, when you really have the inclination to read it, cause it's really long)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

SEZ is a good concept. It has worked fairly well for China, but the downside is the social cost. China being primarily a command economy is running into major problems. Because of flexible market mirroring rules of SEZs, China is suffering with clashes of major theologies. They have market economy on the coast and command economy inland. All the money and power is centered on the coast, causing a huge influx of rural population into these SEZs. This is actually rendering farming and agriculture problems in China, since infrastructure development in rural areas of China is not taking place much. Considering the trends that India follows, an SEZ in India can cause similar problems. My opinion.

Perestroika said...

yes i fully agree with you. but isin't tht happening presently in india too, with a large population from bihar and u.p. coming to bbay, although due to diff reasons(incompetency of their state govts).

also generally speaking, ppl from farmsides are migrating to cities, u must have read abt farmer suicides too; SEZ will probably give these migrating rural ppl, and urban unemployed more jobs.

but the social con will probably have to be accepted, for the overall growth.

another con is that tax exeptations given to export based industries will create a tax haven, with the center loosing out on huge revenues.

neways dude, nice to get a discussion goin.

Unknown said...

another discussion is the power centers that such regions become. easy labor laws and tax laws, puts more money in the hands of the few. Its almost like an acceleration of the so called "elite." Thats not necessarily bad if those profits turn into capital investment. Considering the economic climate of India, i think an SEZ can be a positive at this point. We need to create more jobs there!!!

Amit said...

main concept of SEZ (what i think) is to get foreign currency into the country and also more employment opps..so the concept is cool and will definately result in more migration frm the villages to cities..but who said that it doesn't have downsides.. but we need much bigger and independent SEZ than what we r planning right now..

Anonymous said...

hmm..
never heard about it!!

Aditya Pethe said...

Interesting.....