The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has relaxed Special Economic Zones (SEZ) norms for minimum land requirement and sale of units, in order to attract more investors.

The new norms include reducing the Minimum Land Area Requirement by half for different categories of SEZs.

For multi-product SEZ, the minimum land requirement has been brought down from 1,000 ha to 500 ha. For Sector-Specific SEZs, it has been minimised to 50 ha. The norm was also relaxed for setting up of zones in north eastern states, hilly regions, Goa and the union territories.

In addition to this, the government has also eased the norms for setting up exclusive SEZs for electronics hardware and software, handicrafts and agro-based food processing zones.

As per new norms, IT SEZs are subject to only a minimum built-up criteria norm which is 50,000 sq mtr for category B cities such as Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Lucknow, and 25,000 sq mtr for even smaller cities and rural areas.

It has also introduced 'Sectoral Broad-Banding' to set up additional units in a sector-specific SEZ and to encompass similar or related areas under the same sector.

On issues relating to vacant land, the existing policy allows for parcels of land with pre-existing structures not in commercial use to be considered as vacant land for the purpose of notifying a SEZ.