NEW DELHI: India’s largest property developer DLF on Friday said the company has asked the government to denotify four IT/ITES special economic zones (SEZ). In a disclosure to the stock exchanges, the company said that it “has requested the ministry of commerce and industry for denotification of four IT/ITES SEZs.”

A senior company official said the four SEZs that the company want to surrender are located at Bhubaneshwar, Gandhinagar, Kolkata and Sonepat (Haryana).

“The global economic downturn and the IT sector slowdown have affected demand for office space, so we approached the government for denotification,” the official added.

The disclosure came after stock exchanges sought clarifications from DLF on media reports that said the company plans to surrender five out of its nine notified IT/ITeS SEZs due to cash crunch.

Earlier, the company had surrendered its 40-acre IT SEZ in Delhi. The entire real estate sector is facing a credit crunch forcing them to put on hold many of their expansion plans and projects. The slowdown in the IT sector has added uncertainty leading to slump in demand for office space.

As per Indian laws, SEZs cannot be surrendered once they become operational. DLF, however, has not started work on the five SEZs that it wants to surrender.
Earlier, a senior commerce ministry official had said DLF has nine (notified) IT/ITeS special economic zones, of which the company had planned to drop five and “they (DLF) have made an application and it will come up after the elections”.

According to official data, the land banks of DLF’s four notified SEZs are: 10.12 hectares in Gandhinagar, 10.24 hectares in Sonepat, 10.23 hectares in Bhubaneswar and 10.48 hectares in Kolkata.

As per industry sources, firms like DLF and Parsvanath were unable to raise funds for their SEZ projects. Earlier, Parsvanath had put on hold its 12 IT/ITeS SEZ projects.

After touching an intra-day low of Rs 226.55, the scrip of DLF today settled 1.75 per cent down at Rs 230.55 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

source: Economictimes

Tags: DLF, Dlf news, IT, realty, sez

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