GMR Infra expedites SEZ land acquisition

GMR Infra, which is building a Special Investment Region (SIR) near Hosur in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu, has said that it has completed 80 per cent of the land acquisition for the 4,200-acre project. The SIR will come up on the Bangalore-Chennai Industrial Corridor.

“The entire land for the SIR project has been identified and 80 per cent of the private land has been purchased. Purchase of balance land is in progress,” a GMR Infra spokesperson said.

One of the land parcels for SIR is located on National Highway 7, which is a six-lane highway linking Bangalore to Chennai on the Golden Quadrilateral route. The balance lands are about 7 km to the south-west and lie between state highways 85 and 17.

The company said that various thrust areas for development have been identified in the SIR based on market demand as well as availability of resources. The SIR will feature dedicated zones for high-tech engineering and high value manufacturing in the areas of precision engineering, aerospace and defence, automobile and auto components. It will have options for both Special Economic Zones and Domestic Tariff Areas.

The spokesperson did not give a timeline for completion of the project, saying that it is being expedited in phases.

According to earlier reports, GMR Infra was looking to scale down the scope of the special investment region last year by going in for an asset-light strategy, but later decided to go in for further expansion of the zone.

GMR Infra has set aside 527 acres of integrated development for electronic manufacturing companies under the M-SIPS (Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme) policy of the Department of Electronics & Information Technology which pushes for more electronic manufacturing clusters across the country.

Industry sources added that the SIR would incorporate a township and lifestyle-oriented infrastructure necessary to support the labour force and industrial activity generated there.

“We are targeting industrial clientele of top transnational corporations accustomed to operating in the best of industrial and infrastructure regimes globally. And, the project is located in close proximity to demand centres along the Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor which has high availability of skilled manpower, numerous polytechnic and engineering colleges,” the company spokesperson said.

GMR Infra is also exploring the SIR’s potential for development of aerospace and defence firms, due to the project site being proximate to aerospace and defence industries in Bangalore.