How do developers go about the task of setting up SEZs? Before looking at the process, it will probably be wiser to understand what a ‘developer’ implies in SEZ parlance. According to Section 2 of the SEZ Act of 2005, a ‘developer’ is a person, or a State Government, holding an approval letter from the Central Government for establishing an SEZ. A particular SEZ might have more than one developer if one single entity is not found possessing the minimum stretch of contiguous land required for building the zone. All such entities then become ‘co-developers’.

A simple way of understanding the rules of the game to be followed by developers would be to look at the details that they need to submit to the authorities for building zones. Compared with the general perception, the paperwork involved is not excessively long or tedious. The form ‘A’ in which an applicant is required to apply for setting up zones is just a three-page document with a refreshingly simple attitude. This has been reproduced in Annexure 1. Apart from the mandatory but somewhat perfunctory information on the developer (name, address, nature of the company, etc.), an interesting query in the form is the distance of the proposed zone from the nearest sea, road, air or railhead. One can sense that the authorities are keen to understand the kind of links the zone can grow given the gateways around it.