SEZ: A bouquet of opportunities

KOCHI: The state’s commercial capital is expected to open doors of opportunity to entrepreneurs, with the state planning to come up with the new Special Economic Zone policy on the Centre’s lines.The draft of the State Industrial and Commercial Policy - 2011, which stresses on establishment of small and micro-enterprises in rural areas to generate employment with focus on food industry and industrial clusters, will help change the outlook of the region.The policy, once implemented, will help give focus on projects on food processing, bio-technology, nano technology-based industries, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry president P Pratap Chandran said. The state has changed a lot in the last few years for the better. The labour policy has become investor-friendly. The biggest example of the transformation of  the state can be seen in the successful functioning of the International Container Transshipment Terminal at Vallarpadam, he said.However, the state is not fully free from labour problems. “This can be solved by creating awareness among the people. Even the workers have realised that strikes have not been proving effective in solving their demands,” he said. He said the policy would benefit those who are highly qualified and are looking for jobs outside.Citing an example of some contract workers reportedly losing jobs in Cochin port, he said that it was high time the government mulled steps to find alternative jobs for them, and the new SEZ policy would help solve the issue in a big way.On the other hand, the Cochin Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the labour issues need to be solved at the earliest.Though the ICTT has started functioning, it is facing certain issues, Chamber president Anand Menon said. There are also other problems which need to be tackled to make Kerala an investor-friendly state.The single-window clearance should be made more effective. Issues like getting power connection from the KSEB is still a big problem in the state, he said.The ‘nokukooli’ problem continues to hurt the investors in the state. The infrastructure in the state should get special attention to lure investors in the SEZ, he said. However, the state has changed a lot in the past few years and is encouraging to note that it is inching towards investory-friendly state, he said.