Export Processing zones in India

Clearly, Indian EPZs failed to provide world class infrastructure to zone units. Inadequate
facilities, poor quality of the facilities and deterioration in the quality of these facilities appear to
have affected the competitiveness of the firms.
V.3 Governance
V.31 Firms’ perspective
Another important feature of EPZs is that they minimise red tape and provide single
window clearances. We asked units ‘how effective have been the various aspects of
governance?’. Their responses are summarised in Table 15 below. We differentiated between
new entrants with the age of less than 6 years and old firms which have been operating for more
than 6 years. Apparently younger firms find the quality of governance lesser satisfactory than the
older firms. Over 40% of the respondents find that the accessibility to rules is difficult, there are
long delays in bureaucratic decisions and pre-entry services are inadequate. Slightly less than
40% feel that government officials’ attitude is not satisfactory, post establishment services are
not good and effectiveness of the authorities in providing single window clearances is not
satisfactory. Many older firms do not consider rules to be complex or non accessible. They did
not even complained of long delays in bureaucratic decisions but they also did not seem to be
happy with the attitude of the government officials, their effectiveness in dealing with labour
related problems and providing single window clearances. Opinion seems to have divided even
on the self delaration scheme. However over two-thirds of all the firms, young and old seem to
be satisfied with the effectiveness of the authorities in providing custom related services. We
shall explore the reason later.
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