India on Tuesday approved a new policy aimed at boosting the output of the manufacturing sector to 22 percent of gross domestic product from 16 percent and creating 100 million new jobs.

Commerce Minister Anand Sharma termed the plan "a game changer," though it sounded suspiciously like previous moves to set up Special Economic Zones with relaxed tax and labor regulations.

According to the Times of India, the National Manufacturing Policy offers benefits ranging from tax concessions and single-window approval for setting up giant industrial towns on waste and infertile land acquired by the government.

Under the policy, cleared after months of debate, at least seven National Investment and Manufacturing Zones ( NIMZ) are proposed to be set up in the North and West. A survey has been commissioned to set up similar zones in the South. These zones would be greenfield integrated industrial townships and the area would be at least 5,000 hectares.

Let's take a look back at the original Special Economic Zone policy, just for kicks.

The SEZs had the same single-window clearance, the same cheap land rates, the same tax benefits, the same relaxed labor laws, and they were supposed to generate a huge boom in infrastructure, boost manufacturing and drive the growth of Indian exports. Presumably, if they'd worked, the new medicine in an old bottle -- NMIAOB... Oh, wait, it's NIMZ -- would never have been needed. So what's the difference? Mainly, there won't be as many NIMZ as there were SEZ, Sharma told the Hindu Business Line.

Are you saying, "Huh?"

Though there are some success stories, too, many SEZ turned into real estate plays for some of India's biggest companies -- as developers built residential projects in zones that were supposed to be the havens of factories. At the same time, some astute commentators here wondered whether the government wasn't trying to reinvent the License-Permit Raj by creating an artificial shortage of "zones" that politicians could then dispense to the highest bidder (and we're not talking about public auctions here, all you 2G telecom spectrum scam watchers). Will the NIMZ be different? I'd like to hope so, but I have my doubts.