Cease-SEZ! No zones till new rehabilitation policy

TNN, January 18

NEW DELHI: With SEZ becoming a political football and the ruling side getting increasingly wary of inviting popular backlash, the prime ministerial establishment on Wednesday decided to put on hold vetting of fresh proposals. Not just that. Even those SEZs which have got permission but are yet to take off, will be brought under the scanner. Sources said permissions will be granted only after the government puts in place the new rehabilitation policy.

The decision comes in the backdrop of an assessment in the ruling side that the political cost involved in the measure was too high to bear. This is not off the mark as the Nandigram stand-off has caused a great deal of disaffection among the peasantry for the CPM. In states like Punjab, the SEZ controversy is already threatening to become a major election issue.

In any case, the National Advisory Council has been asking the government to address the rehabilitation issue before giving more clearances. In a letter to the rural development ministry, the PMO had voiced concern of the NAC to make out a case for a proper resettlement and rehabilitation policy.

The PMO has directed the rural development ministry to give legal backing to the provisions being woven into the new rehabilitation policy. It has asked the ministry to jettison the old format of providing benefits to the displaced persons by widening its ambit to include landless persons, artisans and such other categories of people who are effected by the project, but may not own land.

The PMO has also asked the ministry to look into the option of giving stock option to the project-affected persons so as enable them to have a stake in its development. But the task of framing a new policy is not all that easy given the utterances of rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh.

Mr Singh has questioned the policy of acquiring agricultural land for setting up special economic zones (SEZs). Signalling his intention of encroaching upon the turf of other ministries, the RJD leader also sought information on SEZs that had already been approved or were in the pipeline, the nature of land made available to them and demanded a say in the land acquisition process.

The rural development minister, who earlier this week had stepped on the toes of the road transport and highways ministry by calling a meeting to review the progress on NHDP (Phase III), also demanded a cap on clearing new SEZs — a move that fell well outside his domain. Mr Singh’s adventurism does not augur well for the UPA government as its goes about its task of finalising a new, more humane rehabilitation policy, in keeping with the assurance handed out by the prime minister on January 8.

Interceding on behalf of civil society activists and those demanding a reversal of the SEZ policy, Mr Singh shot off a letter of commerce minister Kamal Nath on Monday, seeking details of the land transferred to SEZ promoters for setting up their projects. He also demanded a role for his ministry in the land procurement process, even as he spoke out in favour of putting a ceiling on clearing new proposals.

Mr Singh joins the long list of ministers who had taken its upon themselves to act as the government’s spokespersons on crucial policy issues even if they fell outside their turf, grinding, in the process, the reforms process to a complete halt.

The rural development minister’s pronouncements are likely to embolden those sections which have kicked off an aggressive campaign to seek and about-turn on the issue pertaining to SEZs.