Facts and Background
The Government of India, recognizing the need to promote exports
to propel GDP growth, had implemented the Special Economic Zone
Policy in 2000 as part of the Foreign Trade Policy. Subsequently,
the policy was implemented under the Special Economic Zones Act,
2005 (SEZ Act). Presently, there are 268 active Special Economic
Zones (SEZs) with 5576 units. Over the past seventeen years,
investments worth~ USD 82 billion were made and 2.6 million jobs
were created with annual exports of USD 133 billion (Financial
Year 2021 – 2022).
There is no doubt that the SEZ Act has propelled exports and
created jobs. However, an export focused approach resulted in
inefficiencies and underutilization of capacity and therefore, the
complete advantages envisaged earlier could not be achieved. In
order to further create opportunities and maintain the desired
efficiency of SEZs, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry,
Government of India set up the Baba Kalyani
