Gandhinagar: While several coastal states in India have proposed Coastal Economic Zones (CEZ) and secured approval under Govt of India’s Sagarmala project, Gujarat too has planned to develop new CEZs to further harness the potential of port-led economic development.
“We have major ports in Gujarat playing a vital role in the economic development of the state and the country. However, at the recent chintan shibir where various ideas to boost Gujarat’s employment potential were discussed, it was also decided to explore the concept of CEZs,” a senior official involved in the preparation of CEZs said.
At present, outside the major ports in Kutch, Saurashtra and South Gujarat, there is minimal development and vast untapped potential still exists, he said, adding, “So, the state govt aims to accelerate the potential. We have commenced preparing plans for new CEZs under which the state govt will develop zones near ports with plug-and-play facilities on various scales. The main aim is to focus on port-based industrialisation.”
Sources said, “Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) is preparing port-led city development plans. However, now we aim to revise planning and prepare CEZs. We aim to initiate several policy initiatives under which the state govt will incentivise the new industries coming in notified CEZs in the state.”
A CEZ is a spatial economic region comprising a substantial area in a single district or in a group of coastal districts with robust linkage to ports in that region with an intent to reduce logistics costs from demand-supply centre to port and vice versa. CEZs have been envisaged to facilitate port-led industrialisation, exim, coastal trade of goods and commodities under the Sagarmala project.
The Govt of India has recommended that the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways should explore the possibility of industrialisation of the land available with ports. Coastal Economic Units (CEUs) will be specific industrial estate projects with a demarcated boundary and will house industrial clusters/projects proposed within the CEZ.