The Board of Approvals on Wednesday gave formal approval to 17 Special Economic Zones, including those of Vedanta and DLF, but deferred a decision on the Navi Mumbai zone promoted by Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani and his associate Anand Jain.
The Board took up 23 cases, which had in-principle approval, for final clearance. Among others, it approved Vedanta Alumina and DLF's SEZs in Orissa, Suzlon's two zones in Gujarat and Karnataka and Unitech's IT SEZ in West Bengal.
However, the Navi Mumbai SEZ failed to get clearance as Revenue Department wanted more details on measures proposed by the promoters to plug revenue leakages, official sources said.
"A railway line and a road pass through the 1,250 hectare SEZ and Revenue Department wanted to confirm if the steps proposed by the company to prevent possible revenue loss through these transit routes were adequate," the sources said.
According to SEZ rules, in case a road or a railway line pass through a zone, the developer can build an underpass or an overbridge to secure clearance.
Revenue department officials could also visit the site of the SEZ and the proposal could be taken up at the next meeting of the board on May 31, they said.
In the next meeting, the Board will take up 40 fresh proposals for SEZs that already have land. "As they have land, they will be given formal approval straight away. There are as many as 369 SEZ proposals pending before the board of which 160 have land," the sources added.
Apart from Navi Mumbai, six other SEZs that came for formal approval were deferred because of land issues.
