This is article from times of india (20/8/08) . IT shows interest of TIDCO in development of SEZ.
Gvk company offered six times of actual value of land and also training and job opportunities for those who sold the land. I think these offers made people to sell land voluntarily. One more interesting aspect is pondicherry govt promised to supply power to the SEZ. If govt provides support in all aspects i think India will be on par with China in few years.
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I thought your concluding comment on India being on par with China was interesting - is that in terms of SEZs or development in general? I think they are both different things
My conclusion is specific to SEZ ... as i have only SEZ stats for comparison between two countries.
Dear Rajesh,
Its good that you raised this issue and have your thoughts on SEZ. But my argument is ... India which is basically agricultural nation, where most of the population still rely on farming as their livelihood, will flourish and develop like anything, just because if we built SEZ!
Violence by Farmers in Singur, Nandigram, etc is the examples, where it proved that by constructing the SEZ on fertile land not only take away the livelihood of the poor/unskilled farmers but also give load to environment (by constructing the building which consumes lots of energy and imparts load to environment)...
The TRUE PICTURE of SEZ can be cleared ...if someone bring out the benefits/social impacts studies.
Even though we had guest lecture on the same, for me (after going through many newspaper articles) is simply a BUZZ word. Which means nothing but EXPLOITATION.
As a Civil Engineer/Developer we may think that the more n more SEZ will bring lots of construction work and in turn its good for our progress.
But if we think from the common man's perspective it may not be that much attractive.
More thoughts/comments are welcomed...
According to stats the land that will be used for SEZ will be at max...300 sqkm(might not be exact).
For agriculture around 51% of whole countries land is being used which is in lakhs of sqkm (1.5L sqkm).
The hue going on in case of nano industry is a political drama
hmm. let me again give a journal article i wrote on SEZs.
I was particularly disturbed during the guest lecture on SEZs, particularly because I felt that it was a very biased account of SEZs. What irked me more was Mash’s comment, “the state should acquire the land for ‘development’ projects.” This paper has my disagreements with Mash, the guest lecture and the SEZ policy.
The general argument in favour of SEZs is that we need Industrialisation, growth, and Development. Surely, we do not need industrialisation or growth in GDP for its own sake, but for what it enables us to do. Industrialisation should generate employment; growth of national product should remove poverty and thus human suffering. SEZs and infrastructure should be aids in this process of employment generation and poverty reduction, and not ends in themselves. The following points hence follow:-
1. Compensation: In most debates of the policy, compensation for land is seen as a primary obstacle. The fact is that land is just a small part of the picture. In Nandigram and in Singur, areas which saw huge struggles against SEZs, the primary issue is not land, but loss of livelihoods. While most land-owners are ready to sell, the landless labourers are the ones who are protesting. Property rights are such that while land is considered legitimate property to be compensated for, livelihoods are not. Imagine taking away IITM land, for an SEZ, and compensation just to the government who owns the land, and not the professors. In fact forests, pasture and water sources for millions of rural families are endangered. There is no formula for compensating loss of resources, partly because they are held in common, not in private ownership. There is protest because of our pathetic historical record in compensation: an estimated 40 million people (of which nearly 40% are Adivasis and 25% Dalits) have lost their land since 1950 on account of displacement due to large development projects. At least 75% of them still await rehabilitation.
2. Employment Generation: The organised sector has a negligible role in employment generation in India. The total employment in the organized sector is still less than 3 crore. Even in IT and ITES, the boom areas of the economy, employment is less than 0.15 crore. (60% SEZs are for IT.) The Indian labour force is estimated at 45-55 crore. Thanks to growing automation, modern manufacturing grows joblessly around the world. (In India automobile production has grown rapidly, while employing less labour than before.) With more automation, organized services also require limited supplies of labour. The few jobs that will be generated will be for highly skilled labour, usually not available in the countryside – from where working people are being displaced to make room for SEZs.
3. Democracy: The SEZ has policy is inspired from China in more ways than one. Many of the SEZs, like the MahaMumbai SEZ (to be built by Reliance Industries) will be like a mid-sized city, over 100 sq km in area (the size of Chandigarh). There will be no elected local government. A government-appointed ‘Development Commissioner’ will govern the SEZ with the main aim of facilitating economic growth. SEZs have been a declared ‘public utilities’ under the Industrial Disputes Act, making collective bargaining and strikes illegal. Infrastructure, like power, roads and water supply has been guaranteed to investors and. The constitutional tenability of private monopolies running local governments (for a sizeable cluster of the urban population) without being elected is questionable.
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