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NEW DELHI: The government has given the go-ahead for setting up India’s first mega coastal economic zone (CEZ) at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Maharashtra as part of a plan to develop 14 such industrial clusters to spur manufacturing and generate jobs.About 45 companies across telecom, auto and IT sectors will soon bid for 200 hectares of land to set up manufacturing units in the zone, senior officials told ET.The plan envisages a total investment of Rs 15,000 crore in the first phase and creation of more than 1.5 lakh jobs, they said. “The idea is to attract large firms interested in serving the export markets as they would bring with them technology, capital, good management and links to the world markets,” said one of the officials, who did not wish to be identified.“This in turn would help create an ecosystem around them in which productive small and medium firms would emerge and flourish,” the official said. The Union Cabinet had last year approved setting up of 14 mega CEZs under the National Perspective Plan of the Sagarmala Programme, with an aim to promote development of industrial clusters around ports, encourage portled development, reduce logistics cost and time for movement of cargo, enhance global competitiveness of India’s manufacturing sector and create hubs of job creation.These zones are expected to provide business-friendly ecosystem including ease of doing business, ease of exporting and importing, swift decisions on applications for environmental clearances, and speedy water and electricity connections. The Jawaharlal Nehru Port is among the busiest cargo ports in the country, but it has sufficient available land. That is why it has been chosen over other ports to kick-start the concept which was first mooted by the erstwhile NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya.The port handles over 40% of India’s export-import volume because of deep-draft ports capable of accommodating very large and heavily loaded ships. CEZs are spatial economic regions comprising a group of coastal districts or districts with a strong linkage to ports in that region to tap into synergies with the planned industrial corridor projects. The country’s first mega CEZ will stretch along north Konkan region spread across Nashik, Thane, Mumbai, Pune and Raigarh.The government’s plan envisages investment of $100 billion (about Rs 6.5 lakh crore) in industrial development for port-led economic growth in maritime sector and inland waterways, water transport, coastal and cruise shipping, and solar and wind energy generation to boost the country’s growth momentum considering India’s huge coastline of 7,500 km. The government hopes to add two percentage points to India’s GDP through creation of worldclass infrastructure.It would be sensible to set up EOUs in the coastal zones. There’s huge potential to boost exports of labour-intensive items such as textiles, garments and ready-mades, provided we can reap economies of scale and have the required capability to meet high-volume export demand. The gestation period for labour-intensive units is also likely to be far shorter. But they need to be flexible and innovative, to keep up with changing tastes and demand patterns.