SEZs are land-grab by other means

- By Kuldip Nayar

Over 50,000 farmers from the remote Pen-Panvel tehsils of Maharashtra’s
Raigad district assembled in Mumbai the other day demanding that the
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) be done away with. A massive rally
condemned the nexus between the corporate company Reliance and the
Maharashtra government. On the same day, 25 trade unions in the Pune
area opposed the "anti-farmer and anti-labour" SEZ policy and projects.

It was pure and simple land-grab by the rich corporate powers, builders
and real estate owners in the name of export and economic activity. So
in no uncertain terms the farmers warned against the usurping of their
lands. They opposed the acquisition of land, the tax concessions of
billions of rupees and the winding down of the laws of the land for the
sake of corporate powers. But the state government did not react.

Some of us, NGOs, including representatives of Maharashtra, met Union
minister for industry and commerce, Kamal Nath at his office in New
Delhi to draw his attention to the anger of the restive farmers and
agitating unorganised labour. We also told him about the acquisition of
agricultural land in Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh for
industrialists on less than market price. He assured us (whatever it
meant) that the government of India did not want this to happen and gave
us a copy of the letter he had written to the chief ministers. The
letter had requested them "to ensure that the land acquired for the
purpose of SEZs in the state is primarily waste or barren land.
Agricultural land may be acquired only if necessary to meet the minimum
area requirement."

The minister does not realise that this little leeway that has been
given is playing havoc. The states are acquiring agricultural land and
in defence of this are saying that the Centre has allowed them to make
up for the deficit in the size of SEZs from agricultural land. "I can’t
help it," Kamal Nath said. "Land is a state subject and the Centre does
not come into the picture." This may well be the Constitutional
position. But it is the Centre which is behind the industry.

Surprisingly, the SEZs have come up first in the Congress-run states.

So pet seems to be the project with the Congress that the party has
taken to task a Haryana leader who challenged the state’s acquisition of
35,000 acres of agricultural land for an industrial house. Congress
president Sonia Gandhi has voiced her opposition to the acquisition of
agricultural land. So it is strange that she too did not listen to those
who were objecting.

What I do not understand is why the government should come into the
picture at all. Even today, the industrialists talk to the landowners
directly and decide the purchase price. But when the government is
involved, what happens is that, in the name of SEZ the government
acquires agricultural land at a price which is way below the market
price. SEZ promoters claim that they have given the state government a
higher price for the land than the one for which it was acquired. Where
does the margin go? Some of it may have been diverted to the treasury
but some must have found its way to the pockets of political leaders.

The worst part about SEZ is that the uprooted farmers and casual labour
have to fend for themselves. There is no proper rehabilitation plan. The
authorities’ plea is that when a farmer has been "paid" for the land, he
has no claim on the government. But this would have been the case if the
government had not requisitioned the land to begin with. After doing so,
and making thousands of acres available to business houses at a cheap
price, the government cannot shrug off its responsibility. It can still
tell the promoters to make the same size of uncultivable land cultivable
to make up for the agricultural land which the government acquires for
SEZ. The Centre does not seem to oppose the acquisition of one-produce
land, knowing full well that two-third of the land in India is one-crop.

In the name of development, the Central government appears to be bent on
reducing the area that agricultural land occupies and hence curtailing
the quantum of food production. While doing so, New Delhi is also
scrapping environmental laws, a move that violates human rights. Since
the aim is to locate the industry on prime cultivable land, no
consideration is shown for the forests, the greenery and even the
renewable sources of water. SEZs are the Central government’s dream
projects for GDP growth and for competing with China. What we see is a
fresh wave of a neo-economic agenda that was pursued by the Atal Behari
Vajpayee-led coalition and is now being eagerly promoted by the Manmohan
Singh government.

Kamal Nath said that the country needed to decide whether it wanted
industry or not, and if the answer was "yes," the government had no
option except to acquire land. His argument would carry weight if he
were to exclude cultivable land. There is plenty of banjar land or land
which has been overused. The price for industry cannot be the ruination
of farmers; and what about the labour? Land creates jobs for them.
Equally undemocratic is the manner in which the ministry of environment
and forests is pushing through an anti-environment, anti-poor version of
the Environment Impact Assessment Notification. Civil society and
environmental activists have raised their voice against it. The ministry
is acting in direct contravention of the federal character of our country.

The government is not consulting the public at large, in particular,
movements and networks that have repeatedly demonstrated against the
lackadaisical concern of the ministry to environmental and social
justice issues. The ministry has also given the state governments the
status they have accorded the corporate sector.

Information provided by the ministry of environment and forests in
response to an RTI request has confirmed that the ministry had only
consulted the industry and its lobby groups, while comments sent by many
people’s organisations were not even registered.

The ministry also brazenly admits that it has specifically consulted
"apex industry associations" such as CII, Assocham, FICCI and CREDAI and
that a draft of the final notification had been circulated to the apex
industry associations and Central ministries. The faulty notification
issued to hand over the responsibility of granting clearance to a large
number of projects to the state governments without any checks or
counterchecks means that projects will be cleared indiscriminately.

According to new instructions, construction projects need not go for
screening. They also do not need to conduct public consultation. Several
large capacity projects have been left out of the notification
altogether. All building and construction projects with less than 20,000
square metres of built-up area like Vasant Kunj Square Mall are now
exempt from the notification. All in the name of development!