<span style="color: #222222;">The Parliament has passed the Special Economic Zones (Amendment) Bill 2019 with Rajya Sabha approving it today. The Lok Sabha passed the bill yesterday.<br />''<br />''The Bill seeks to amend the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005.<br />''<br />''Replying to discussions on the Bill in the Rajya Sabha, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said that the small amendment can have a large impact on investments and employment generation.<br />''<br />''The Minister said the amendment will help in bringing International Financial Services Centres to the country. Mr. Goyal assured that these centres will not affect the domestic market rather create enormous job opportunities.<br />''<br />''The Minister said, through SEZs over 5 Lakh Crore investments, 20 Lakh employment and over 7 lakh crore exports have taken place.  He rejected the opposition on taking ordinance route to legislate saying, the repeated disruptions in both the houses during last year forced the government to take such measures.<br />''<br />''Earlier, participating in the debate  Jairam Ramesh of Congress party questioned the timing of bringing the Bill as ordinance just before the elections.<br />''<br />''He also said there are several SEZs that have acquired the huge amounts of land at a nominal price without any economic activity in them. Derek O' Brien of Trinamool Congress alleged that land mafia is taking control of land through SEZs.<br />''<br />''Ram Gopal Yadav of SP, Prasanna Acharya of BJD, D Raja of CPI, Manoj Jha of RJD, Naresh Gujral of SAD and others also participated in the discussion.</span>