Reeling under a double whammy of slowing industrial expansion and a slowdown in the housing sector, realty major DLF has written to the commerce ministry seeking to surrender five of the nine SEZs allotted to it across the country.
“DLF has nine (notified) IT/ITeS special economic zones. They have made an application for dropping five of them, and it will come up after the elections,” a senior official said on Wednesday.
The slowdown in the information technology sector has made investments in IT SEZ a less lucrative business than in the past few years.
A company spokesperson, when contacted, declined to offer comments. “We do not comment on market speculations,” he said.
DLF has land for nine SEZs in Bhubaneshwar, Gurgaon, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Sonepat, Pune, Kanchipuram and Kolkata. Of its total 14 SEZ projects, five are operational at present.
Other real estate players like Ansal and Parsvnath have also put their SEZ expansion plans on hold.