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Ph.D.
(Social Sciences & Humanities)
AN ANALYSIS OF SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE UNITS IN GUJARAT

Ph.D. Scholar : Thapa Premprakash Mathursingh
Research Supervisor : Dr. K. M. Chudasama

Regi. No.: 16146071003
Abstract :
India started its export-led growth strategy in the late 90s with the establishment of
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in April 2000 by replacing earlier EPZ policy with drastic
change in new policy framework as well as implementation level. In order to boost this
policy further, the Government of India passed the SEZ Act in 2005 and started its
function from Feb 2006. Literature review reflects that the implementation of SEZ Act in
2005 and Rule 2006 received overwhelming response from across the sector in the
establishment of SEZ in its early stage and the ratio of SEZ exports to total export from
India increased significantly, from 3,15,868 crore to 7,96,669 crore, investment from
1,95,000 crore to 6,28,566 crore and direct employment from 644,000 to 25,60,286
persons between 2010-11 to 2019-20. But in later years, its craze has been gradually
reduced and some of the operational SEZs exits and some of the SEZs with Approval
(LoA) have not started their operation due to poor response from unit registration. SEZ
Data of Gujarat state from 2010-11 to 2019-20 indicate dismal performance despite the
share of SEZ exports to total export from India increased. Share of Gujarat’s SEZ export
to total SEZ export from India reduced from 46.50% in 2010-11 to 23.45% in 2019-20. In
recent past, many researchers, civil society and even government organization like the
Controller of Auditor General of India claimed that SEZs in India are under-performing in
terms of its given objectives like increasing exports, earning net foreign exchange,
attracting foreign direct investment and creating employment in the country. This
research is mainly focus on the issues related to infrastructure and incentives available to
SEZ units in various zones located in Gujarat state. Primary data are collected from 145-
unit holders/managers of 7 SEZ out of 20 operational SEZs 676 SEZ units of Gujarat
State. Stratified convenient sampling method was adopted to collect data and analyzed
with the help of statistical tools like means, standard deviation, Levene’s test for equality
of variances, t-test, ANOVA, welch AVOVA and least square difference (LSD) Post Hoc
method. The final outcome of this research suggested that the perception of
managers/owners regarding infrastructure facilities available in various SEZs in Gujarat
are different at government and private SEZs units, manufacturing and service SEZs units
and within various industries. Only the different size units have similar opinions about the
infrastructure facilities. It directly suggests that there is still a room for improvement of

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