However, the report titled 'SEZs in India: Here comes the Sun' points out that on ground implementation suggests that Pune would lead the list of cities with nearly 23 per cent (23 million sq. ft.) of the total supply estimated to come up by 2010. Pune is followed by Bangalore with 13 million sq. ft. and Chennai with 15 million sq. ft.

The south zone has been the frontrunner of the special economic zone movement in the country accounting for 36 per cent of all approvals coming through, till date. "One state that has clearly dominated the scene is Andhra Pradesh, which accounts for nearly 25 per cent of total notifications. Pockets of maximal activity in the state include the districts of Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam," says the report.

In fact, the supply of new office space supply in the special economic zone space across certain regions in the country is going to far outstrip the fresh supply in non-special economic zone space in the coming years. "This is because building a special economic zone comes out to be 15-20 per cent cheaper than building space for non-special economic zone space," the DTZ report points out.

While IT/ITeS SEZs are the smallest (10-30 hectares of land area), multi-product (over 1,000 hectares) and sector specific SEZs (100-300 hectares) account for most of the largest SEZ developments in the country Hence while the maximum applications processed are for IT/ITeS usage, the total land area under development for them is far lower.

"However, non IT/ITeS SEZs which, on the other hand, are much larger in size and have a larger share of investments compared to IT/ITeS SEZs, will take at least five to seven years more to mature," says the report.