Social welfare? Some SEZs not bothered

AMITI SEN

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2006 02:28:27 AM]

CHENNAI: The controversy over possible land scams in special economic
zones (SEZs) notwithstanding, the government is now grappling with a
problem totally opposite in nature. A number of SEZ developers,
especially in the IT and ITeS sectors, are not showing any interest in
building residential accommodation and related infrastructure for their
workers. This could lead to serious logistical problems in the years to
come.

The trouble is that while the Centre has a legislation in place to check
the creation of excessive social infrastructure, there is no law making
it mandatory for developers to build houses and schools in SEZs.

The Nokia and Flextronics SEZs near Sriperumbudur started production
earlier this year and between them employ about 6,000 men and women. The
number of employees is expected to be about 20,000 in the next four
years. But, both the companies have no plans of providing houses,
schools or hospitals for their employees.

Nokia India operations director Jukka Lehtela, in-charge of the Nokia
Telecom SEZ in Sriperumbudur, is apprehensive that there might be a big
transportation problem in the future, but is clear that building houses
is not on the company's agenda. "We are into manufacturing of phones.
Building houses is not our forte," Mr Lehtela said.

He, however, is hopeful that either the government or private players
will do the needful. With a number of other SEZs coming up in this
stretch, Mr Lehtela fears that if something is not done about housing
soon, the entire highway stretch connecting Chennai with Sriperumbudur
will be jammed with buses transporting SEZ employees. The same
apprehensions are reflected in the neighbourhood Flextronics SEZ which
gained SEZ status in April this year. While it has already employed more
than 2,000 workers, it doesn't have any immediate plans of building
houses. "Let us see how things shape up in the years to come," said
Flextronics Technologies GM, India operations, Gururaj A.

Giving the entire issue a political touch, ETL Infrastructure Services
MD S Thiagarajan, who has developed an ITeS SEZ in Pallikaranai village
near Chennai, said, "There is so much controversy about the possible
misuse and land scam that I do not want to get into social
infrastructure. I am sure that private builders will find it lucrative
to build houses around our SEZ," he said.

The export promotion council for export-oriented units and SEZs, which
feels that there is a need for the government to step in and take some
action, has not yet taken up the issue in a big way with the commerce
department. “The commerce department is aware of the problem. It is yet
to be decided how it is to be dealt with," an official said.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/498242.cms