Billionaire Gautam Adani promoted Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) Ltd may be facing litigation over violation of environmental laws, but the units within country’s biggest multi-product SEZ are doing business as usual with exports growing 19 per cent for the year 2013-14 over the previous fiscal.

Moreover, with the SEZ getting green nod from the union ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) last month, the units are looking forward for expansion and increasing exports in the coming months.

Exports from the SEZ units begun in 2006-07 with Rs 7.65 crore and has now reached Rs 1991.98 crore for 2013-14. The export growth from the units have been steadily on the rise over the years except for 2012-13 when the exports was less than the previous fiscal (2011-12), showed data from SEZ development commissioner.

For the year 2012-13 the total exports from the 13 operational units was Rs 1,1673.27 crore which rose to Rs 1991.98 crore in 2013-14. During this period the production in units was affected twice first for a couple of days in February 2013 and later for over two weeks in January 2014. However, these glitches seems to have hardly affected exports from the units.

For example, Dorf Ketal Speciality Catalyst Pvt Ltd exported products worth Rs 176.19 crore in 2013-14 as against Rs 176.36 crore in the previous fiscal. Dorf Ketal’s SEZ unit manufactures polymer based chemicals used in paints and printing inks. While for another chemical export company Oriental Carbon & Chemicals Ltd 2013-14 was considerably a good year with total exports of Rs 119.95 crore against export of Rs 76.07 crore last year.

The year has also been better for polypropylene staple fibre & Non-woven Geo Textile material makers SKAPS Industries India Pvt Ltd which has two unit in the APSEZ. The exports from SKAPS Industries for 2013-14 reached Rs 266.68 crore from Rs 53.06 crore the previous fiscal. 

However, for Chemoil Adani  Pvt Ltd the exports have come down to Rs 1,222.39 crore from Rs 1,240.52 crore the previous year. Chemoil Adani is a 50:50 joint venture between Chemoil Singapore and Ahmedabad-based Adani Group for supply of bunker at Indian Ports.

Talking about exports of his company V N Badoni, AVP Operations at Dorf Ketal Speciality Catalyst Pvt Ltd, said “Our exports for 2013-14 has been almost the same as previous year. However, the first quarter of 2014-15 was slightly better than corresponding period last fiscal.” He however said that there was limited chances of increase in exports as the company’s expansion plans are still on hold following the pending case in the Supreme Court.

“We cannot increase production further till we get expansion nod,” Badoni explained. Following May 2012 judgement of the Gujarat High Court on public interest litigation (PIL) filed by villagers of Mundra, there is a stay on infrastructure development and construction activities in the SEZ spread across 6,472.86 hectares hence the work of the under-construction units and expansion activities is also on hold. With the MoEF granting environment clearance for the SEZ last month, the SEZ units are hopeful that their expansion plans will finally see light of the day.

“Our expansion plans have been hampered because of the litigation against the APSEZ. Since we are running on full capacity there is hardly any scope of increasing output. We are waiting for the court order on the pending litigation after which we could take up expansion plans,” said a top official of Oriental Carbon & Chemicals Ltd on condition of anonymity.

While Dork Ketal plans to expand its production capacity from present 600 tonne per month to 3000 tonne per month. Oriental Carbon & Chemicals Ltd plans to double its production capacity from 12,000 tonne per annum to 24,000 tonne per annum.