The Ministry of Commerce and Industries notifies relaxations in Pending compliances, expiry of validity of LoAs, approvals or permissions in the current lockdown in view of COVID-19.
In view of the prevailing situation of the COVID-19 pandemic and partial lock-down imposed by the State Governments, most government offices are either closed or are functioning with skeletal staff. In order to facilitate the SEZ industry, it is proposed to provide suitable relaxations on compliances to be met by units /developers /co-developers of SEZS as extended to them vide this department’s instruction dated 30th March, 2020.
The compliances to which the relaxations will apply, includes requirement to file Quarterly Progress Report (QPR) attested by Independent Chartered Engineers by Developers/ Co-developers, SOFTEX form to be filed by IT/ITES units, Filing of Annual Performance Reports (APR) by SEZ units. Extension of Letter of Approvals (LoA) which may expire, in the cases of Developers/co-developers who are in the process of developing and operationalising the SEZ, units which are likely to complete their 5 year block for NFE assessment, and units which are yet to commence operations.
The Government directed the Development Commissioners to ensure that no hardship is caused to Developers / Co-Developer / Units and no punitive action is taken in cases where any compliance is not met during this period impacted by the above disruption. Further, as may be possible, all extensions of LoAs and other compliances may be facilitated through electronic mode in a time bound manner.
In the cases where it is not possible to grant extension through electronic mode or in cases where a physical meeting is required. Development Commissioners shall ensure that the Developer/Co-developer/Units do not face any hardship due to such expiry of validity during this period of disruption, and ad-hoc interim extension deferment of the expiry date may be granted without prejudice till 30.06.2021 or further instructions of the Department on the matter, whichever is earlier.
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