The board meeting also approved the resignation submitted by Executive Director of the SEZ Development Committee Shankar Man Singh and decided to proceed with the appointment of a new chief.

“The board decision, however, is yet to be formalized,” said Bhattarai. “Once the decision is endorsed, the process to make the SEZ operational will begin,” he said.

The administrative building of the Bhairahawa SEZ was inaugurated in November, 11 years after construction was begun. The SEZ currently contains three building blocks. It is spread over an area of 35 hectares and has been divided into 68 plots of 2,200 square metres each.

The zone is expected to house more than 200 factories. More than 95 percent of the building work has been completed, while infrastructure like a petrol pump are in the final stages of construction.

According to Saroj Kumar Vaidya, officiating executive director of the SEZ Development Committee, the draft of the LoI will be reviewed to make sure that no controversies arise in the future.

Since the government has not issued a SEZ Act, industrialists are worried and they say uncertainty regarding its operation persists.

The government’s repeated attempts to bring out a SEZ Act have been unsuccessful. Presently, the SEZ is being operated under the Bhairahawa SEZ Operation Manual and Working Guideline 2014, which has been endorsed by the Cabinet.

Vaidya said that a discussion on a draft of the SEZ Act, which is at the Ministry of Law, was held recently. “There was some confusion regarding a number of clauses, but they have been cleared. So we hope the ministry will give the go-ahead soon,” said Vaidya.

He added that since the working guideline had been endorsed by the Cabinet and issues regarding the incentives to be given to the factories had been cleared by the budget as well, there won’t be any problems when establishing factories inside the SEZ.