In a zest to secure tax holidays, developers are gradually turning special economic zones into a land scam, a leading industrialist has said.
Today, big industrial houses acquiring land for SEZs are "almost turning it into a scam in the name of development," Bajaj Auto Chairman and Rajya Sabha member Rahul Bajaj said at a seminar organised by Consumer Unity and Trust Society in New Delhi on Thursday.
Advocating direct interaction with the farmers, he said, if vast stretches of land have to be acquired to set up SEZs the companies must get them by paying the right value, and not the subsidised rates.
He also said it would not be fair to compare the SEZs in India with that of China, as in case of the latter the land is owned by the state and the benefits go directly to the people. But, in this case it is the developer who is benefiting