Special economic zones should go: Raigad farmers

The verdict at the public audit on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) held in Div village of Pen taluka in Raigad district was unanimous, reports Sujata Anandan.

The verdict at the public audit on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) held in Div village of Pen taluka in Raigad district was unanimous.

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The few 100 farmers and citizens gathered in the village hall for the day-long audit wanted the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to go. And there was not a single voice of dissent.

Corporates like Reliance and the Tata group are seeking to buy up huge tracts of land in the Konkan region to set up power plants and bring about bigger development within easy reach of Mumbai.

But farmers were scornful. “Who says they will be able to generate 200 jobs per acre of land acquired? They will not even be able to employ two for all that land grabbed,” said local farmers’ leader Sunil Naik.

Speakers were mostly ordinary farmers from the region and those who had come from Nashik, Pune, Nagpur and even neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which are also facing trouble over land acquisition for SEZs. Eminent persons like professor Trilochan Sastry, academic dean of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, was there to deliver the public verdict against SEZs.

“This is not just a simple debate about agriculture versus industry,” said Ulka Mahajan, national convenor of the National Alliance for People’s Movement, one of the five non-governmental organisations who organised the public audit.

The data will be collated and the public audit moves to Karnataka in October. Eight more states are going to face the heat in a similar fashion in the coming year.