Faced by criticism on its special economic zone policy, the government is preparing guidelines for acquisition of land from farmers for setting up SEZs.
"We are meeting the representatives of state governments tomorrow (on Thursday) to advise them on land acquisition for SEZs. The Board of Approval will lay down some general guidelines on this," G K Pillai, special secretary in the commerce ministry, said at a CII seminar in New Delhi.
The meeting is also likely to consider norms for putting up social infrastructure such as schools, roads, parks and hospitals in the zones. Though no new cases would be taken up, the BoA would discuss the cases that have already been given in-principle approval.
The government's move to lay norms for land acquisition comes in the wake of severe criticism from several quarters who allege that farmers were being pushed out of their land to benefit a few big companies.
Pillai said some companies such as Bharat Forge have adopted innovative models to take along displaced people by offering them equity shares, provide training and jobs in the SEZs besides monetary compensation for the land.
He said the 150 proposals cleared by the BOA so far would come up on 26,800 hectares of land, which was either already acquired by state industrial development corporations or companies and there was no fresh acquisition.
In the 225 applications pending before the BoA, 75,000 hectares of land would be required, he said, adding no land on which two crops in a year can be grown would be acquired.
The BoA is meeting on Thursday for the first time after the Empowered Group of Ministers last month lifted the cap of 150 SEZs in the country.
Countering the criticism that the SEZ policy would concentrate industrial development to a few states, Pillai said that the BoA would also discuss proposals from states that have so far remained laggard.
"Though some states have been slow to react, we are now getting proposals from Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal. Yesterday (Tuesday), there were eight proposals from West Bengal," he said.
The next meeting of BoA on September 28 would take up all the proposals from Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Orissa and Punjab.
The BoA meeting on October 4 would consider proposals from Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, while the next meeting two days later would take up proposals from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
Pillai also rejected the criticism on revenue loss of Rs 90,000 crore (Rs 900 billion) projected by the finance ministry, saying net benefit to the government through indirect taxes would be Rs 45,000 crore (Rs 450 billion).
"Industry is attracted by offering land at concessional rates and social infrastructure. Developers get a 10-year tax holiday and SEZ units, 15 years. In the process, India is creating world class infrastructure," he said.
SEZ-based industries are expected to employ 500,000 jobs by December 2007 and attract investment of Rs 100,000 crore (Rs 1,000 billion), including Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) of FDI, Anil Mukim, joint secretary in ministry of commerce, said.
