Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Empowered Group of Ministers on special economic zones (SEZs) met on Thursday to give a go ahead to 83 more SEZs in the country. But the SEZ policy has been modified and is more of a balancing act.
In an attempt to prevent a repeat of the Nandigram fiasco, the Centre decided that state governments cannot buy land for companies.
“State governments will not undertake any compulsory acquisition of land for SEZs,” Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath confirmed.
But that is the only major change and the rest of the policy on special economic zones has only been tweaked.
The group of ministers have lifted the freeze and cleared 83 more special economic zones for notification. However, from now on SEZs cannot be more than 5,000 hectares. Though, state governments can reduce this cap if they wish.
The ministers also decided that the minimum processing area of a SEZ must be half its total area.
“In other words it means that where land controversies are not there SEZ applications will be processed,” explained Nath.
The Rural Development Ministry will now formulate a comprehensive rehabilitation and resettlement policy and look at suitable amendments to the Land Acquisition Act but some issues still remain.
“A comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation policy will be worked out ensuring livelihood from the project to at least one person from each displaced family,” Nath said.
IT SEZs form the major chunk of all approved SEZs in the country – this is what the Left is concerned about and wanted reconsidered but the Government has signalled strongly that it isn’t going to happen.
The Left parties, especially the CPI-M, is likely to be unhappy with this because apart from the land question they have been arguing that IT SEZs do little other that extend the tax holiday for that sector and this may just be the UPA-Left flashpoint in the days ahead.
(With inputs from Narendra Nag)
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