Visakhapatnam: As thousands of acres of land in Atchutapuram Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Vizag district are lying vacant for years, AP government has denotified over 1,260 acres to allocate the lands to industries on demand.
The AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) had acquired over 9,200 acres of private and government land from 27 villages of Atchutapuram and Rambilli mandals in Vizag district for the multi-product Atchutapuram SEZ. Of this, more than 3,200 acres had not been allotted because there were no requests.
Sources said that TD government has decided to free SEZs in the state as they contain huge chunks of land that have remained unused for years. First, existing tax and exemption policies in SEZs are not so beneficial to the companies.
The Atchutapuram SEZ yielded around 1,263 acres of land post-denotification and main aim of the denotification is to free only vacant land in the SEZ and not the process would not affect existing companies already functioning in the SEZ said Zonal Manager of APPIC (Special Projects, Vizag) V Nageswara Rao. Soon the lands will allocate to the industrialists, who wanted to set up the industries in small chunk to medium chunk lands, he added. District Collector Pravin Kumar also expressed that nearly 3,000 acres land available at Atchutapuram SEZ for allotment which will be allotted to the investors on demand. Several industrialists have been requesting the government to denotify the SEZ and allot it to industries as several pharma companies has been waiting for the land for expansions of their firms says G. Sambasiva Rao, president of AP Chambers of Commerce and Industry Federation.
Sources said that the denotify will benefit the pharma industries and few others as there was a huge demand for the land in Atchuthapuram area and sources said that the governments may allocate the land by collecting '40 to '50 lakh per acre on a lease.
