Utilization of Blocked Land in Special Economic Zones of India for Balancing Growth and Development

Special Economic Zones (SEZ) of India have been floated in various Zones, however, it is observed that almost half of the allotted land remains un-utilized, which otherwise could have been used for generating additional economic activities. The prevalent research work so far has studied the problem of regional imbalance in SEZ allocation. They advocate establishment of more number of SEZs in other Zones. However the analytical focus of this paper is towards strengthening the present SEZs activities instead of increasing the number of SEZs for increase in growth. As such, it is thought to release the blocked land and reallot them to units in other sector whose performance is overall best in the zone. This paper will try to find out this “Overall Best” performance sector to which re-allotment of land may be offered/auctioned. In any Zone, the performance of different units/sectors will be determined based up on past data in various field like Land requirement, Investment, Employment generated, FDI attracted etc. The relative comparison between the units will be made by virtue of Resource Utilization concept utilizing the ZERO-ONE Goal Programming Technique of Mathematical Optimization using MS-EXCEL where the units/sectors are treated as variables among which the BEST is to be determined. Thus, this research rallies around utilization of Blocked land for re-allotment to the units in the strongest sector specific to that Zone. It offers an opportunity for a Zone to generate additional economic activities which may ultimately lead to eradicate regional imbalance in growth.