Circular No. 84

What it does

Lists the five things an applicant must show to get a tax credit certificate under section 280ZA, which allows such certificates to public companies owning industrial undertakings in urban areas that shift them elsewhere with the Board's prior approval, the object being to encourage dispersal of industry away from urban areas. The undertaking must be owned by a public company; it must stand in an area notified as urban by the Central Government under section 280Y by Notification No. SO 3419 dated 22nd September 1967; the application must be made to the Board in Form No. 1 appended to the Tax Credit Certificate (Shifting of Industrial Undertakings) Scheme, 1967; the Board's approval must be obtained before the shifting actually begins; and the shifting must serve a public purpose.

Why it was issued

The Board set out the eligibility requirements for the concession so that applicants and officers applied section 280ZA uniformly.

Who it reaches

Public companies with industrial undertakings in notified urban areas
Companies planning to relocate a plant out of an urban area
The Board, which decides the prior approval applications
Assessing Officers giving effect to tax credit certificates

The provisions it speaks to

Left, the provision of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as the instrument itself names it. Right, the section of the Income-tax Act, 2025 that the department’s own concordance maps it to — which is where the same ground is now covered.

Under the 1961 Act	Now
s.1	s.1
s.280Y	no counterpart recorded
s.280ZA	no counterpart recorded

The instrument, as the Board published it

The words below are the department’s own, reproduced from its published text. Where the department’s copy carried a publisher’s notes after the instrument, those are not reproduced.

Requirements to be satisfied by applicants for being eligible for concession envisaged under the section
1. Section 280ZA provides for the issue of tax credit certificates to public companies owning industrial undertakings situated in urban areas if they shift their undertakings to some other areas with the prior approval of the Board.
The obvious purpose for the enactment of section 280ZA is to encourage the dispersal of industries from urban areas.
2. In order to be eligible for the concession envisaged in section 280ZA, the following requirements have to be satisfied by the applicant :
(a) the undertaking proposed to be shifted should be owned by a public company;
(b) the undertaking should be situated in an urban area from where it is to be shifted and which has been notified by the Central Government as such under section 280Y in its Notification No. SO 3419, dated 22-9-1967;
(c) application for the shifting of the industrial undertaking be made to the Board in Form No. 1 appended to the Tax Credit Certificate (Shifting of Industrial Undertakings) Scheme, 1967;
(d) prior approval of the Board before the shifting actually commences, should be obtained; and
(e) the industrial undertaking, by shifting should serve a public purpose.

Circular : No. 8 [F. No. 23/1/69-IT(A-II)], dated 24-3-1969.

What to watch

Approval must come before the shifting starts; an application made after the move has begun does not meet condition (d).
The area must be one notified under section 280Y by the 1967 notification, so the notification list decides eligibility, not the ordinary sense of urban.
Only a public company qualifies; a private company or a firm owning the undertaking is outside the section.
The record is dated 1972 and numbered 84, but the citation printed at the foot of the text is Circular No. 8 dated 24th March 1969, so the numbering in the source is doubtful.

Where you meet it

In an application to the Board for approval of a shifting, and in an old assessment giving credit for a certificate issued under the scheme.

What it names

Forms it names. Form No. 1

On the same provision

Other instruments in this library that name the same provision of the 1961 Act. They are not necessarily still operative, and a later one may have replaced an earlier one without saying so.

Notification No. 70/2026 [F. No. 500/Misc./S10(23FE)/FT&TR-II] / SO 2768(E) : Infrastructure Sub-sector Businesses Notified under Schedule V — 2 the Gazette of INDIA : Extraordinary [Part Ii—sec. 3(ii)] 1 June 2026
Notification No. 17/2023 [F. No. 500/05/2018-FT&TR-III] — Ministry of Finance 6 April 2023
Circular No. 22/2022 — Condonation of delay under section 119 2 b of the income tax act 1961 in filing of form no.10a 1 November 2022
Circular No. 41/2016 — Circular No.41 of 2016 21 December 2016
Notification No. 98/2016 [F. No. 149/144/2015-TPL (Part-II)] / S.O. 3289(E) — [To BE Published in the Gazette of INDIA, Extraordinary, Part-ii, section 3, Sub-section (ii)] 25 October 2016
Notification No. 7/2016 [F.No.173/394/2015-ITA-I] / SO 529(E) — 2 the Gazette of INDIA : Extraordinary [Part Ii—sec. 3(ii)] 19 February 2016

← Circular No. 85 · Circular No. 81 →

A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board issues a circular to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to a circular that helps him; the department cannot hold an assessee to one that hurts him, and the Tribunal and the courts decide the law for themselves.

Source: the Income Tax Department’s own published text — its page for this instrument.

What this is