It has been more than two years and the special economic zone (SEZ) planned by the Tata Group and Gammon Infrastructure Pvt Ltd (GIPL) near Jamshedpur has not made any headway due to required permissions from the state government to acquire land.

 “We have already announced this project to our markets as uncertain, because legally we are still not comfortable to proceed due to the land permissions that have (not) been obtained at the state government level,” said Parvez Umrigar, managing director, GIPL.

In 2008, the Tata Group joined hands with GIPL to develop the SEZ. The 100-acre SEZ was being planned as an auto-ancillary unit at Adityapur near Jamshedpur. The investment in the SEZ was estimated to be around Rs100 crore. Tata Group holds 51% in the proposed SEZ while GIPL and the Chhattisgarh state government hold 38% and 11% respectively. The SEZ was expected to be completed within two years from the announcement.

While most of the projects that GIPL has developed were either through 100% stake or a majority holding in subsidiary companies, this is a rare project where GIPL has a minority stake.

Commenting on the future of this project, Mr Umrigar said, “It is a small project; we will have to see whether we would be able to proceed further or not.” — Amritha Pillay