MUMBAI: The government is likely to notify the Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone by month-end, following which construction activity in the SEZ would start, Chairman of Navi Mumbai SEZ Anand Jain said here on Monday.

The Dronagiri SEZ in the vicinity is also expected to be notified by the government shortly, he told reporters.

Jain, a close confidante of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and in charge of the SEZ ventures of the Reliance Group, said Jai Corp Ltd and Navi Mumbai SEZ Pvt Ltd, which are promoting the SEZs over 17,300-acres, would be investing $10 billion or about Rs 40,000 crore on the project that will also include the development of Revas port.

Incidentally, Reliance Industries is not directly investing in this SEZ project.

The SEZ will further attract investment of USD 100 billion from companies that will set up shop there, he said. About 5,000 acres of land has already been acquired and an investment of over $1 billion done in the project.
   
Meanwhile, in a presentation made at Cityscape India conference on real estate, Jain detailed his plans for the SEZ, including road, rail and water connectivity with Mumbai city that is being arranged by government agency, Cidco.

As regards the proposed Navi Mumbai airport which will come up not far from the SEZ, Jain said Reliance will itself be bidding for building the airport.
   
He said the experience in China is that SEZs that are located near existing cities are a big success. This was the reason why his group was putting up the SEZs near Mumbai and Delhi, he said.

Anand Jain said size was a critical factor in setting up an SEZ. It was difficult to put up large infrastructure at competitive cost if the SEZ was not of a certain minimum size, he said.

Jain indicated that among the companies to come up in the SEZ would be those engaged in information technology. "We will provide built-up premises for the IT sector," he said.

It would be very easy to start business in the SEZ and an entrepreneur can start doing business in less than one month, he said.

While he did not spell out which other sectors would set up units in the SEZ, he said total exports from the SEZ could be over $25 billion and the exchequer would be benefited by revenues of $2.5 billion.

It is a win-win situation. The new SEZ will complement and help deconjest Mumbai, he said.

According to him, the entire construction activity in the SEZ, including the rail, road and water connectivity, would take about five years.
   
Referring to the Revas port which will also be developed as an SEZ itself, Jain said Revas port will be the future Rotterdam of south-east Asia.
   
On the opposition to land acquisition, Jain said it was politically instigated. When the state government acquired land in the same area some years ago, it paid only Rs 80,000 per acre.

"But we are paying market rate for the land. This land is barren. Annual gross income of farmers per acre is only Rs 5,000," he said.

The reason some farmers were still not selling their land was because they were expecting to get still higher prices, he added.