The past decade has seen an amazing attraction with a progressing and attracting, high speed globalization (Friedman 2004). Industrial and trade policy reforms of the nineties are designed to improve the productivity performance of Indian industry by attempting to inject more competition from within the economy as well from world economy. The objective is to strengthen the growth capability of the economy in the medium run and help Indian industry to becoming internationally competitive. Trade policy reforms have been at the centre of the New Economic Policies of the nineties. For the first time the policy makers have attempted to integrate the Indian economy with the world economy by doing away with the complex system of import licensing and making an open commitment to lower tariff rates on imports (Agarwal 2004).The growth of Indian export industry started on 1992 but its emergence on the year 2000.This period has witnessed a major shift in direction, and approach. The EXIM (export-import) Policy has introduced a new scheme from April 1, 2000 for establishment of the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Export Promotion Zones (EPZ) in different parts of the country. SEZs will be permitted to be set up in the public, private, joint sector or by the State Governments. SEZs of India are in three categories: (a) multi product SEZs occupying a minimum 1000 of hectares of land (b) sector specific SEZs occupying minimum of 100 hectares of land, (c) BPO and biotech SEZs occupying a minimum of 10 hectares of land in backward States such as Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Sikkim, J&K and Goa and the Union Territories (Ministry of Commerce and Industry 2010). During the Jawaharlal Nehru’s period, foreign collaborations were promoted in certain sectors and foreign investment was encouraged. First Export Processing Zone (EPZ) was set up in 1965 at Kandla, in Gujarat and Santa Cruz EPZ in Mumbai became operational in 1973.
SEZ is an almost self contained area with high class infrastructure for commercial as well as residential inhabitation. The units operating in these zones are to be deemed as outside the country’s customs territory and will have full flexibility of operations. These kinds of policy changes have made many employment opportunities in various sectors and high growth of foreign exchange earnings. At the same time this development helps to the urbanization and rural infrastructure developments.EPZ and SWZ exports has increased in India from less than Rs.1 million in 1966 to over Rs. 97727 million in 2002. Over the same period, total employment increased from 70 to around 89,000, net foreign exchange earnings increased from Rs. 0.16 million to Rs. 43195 million and value addition increased from 21% to 44% (Ministry of Commerce 2004).
The second stage of SEZ development started with the SEZ Act, 2005, supported by SEZ Rules, has come into effect on 10th February 2006. In a short span of about three years, 576 SEZs applications have been granted for setting up and 319 have been notified. As per the government statistics SEZ provide 3.87 lakh employment opportunities. Physical exports from SEZs have increased from Rs. 66,638 corer in 2007-08 to Rs. 99,689 corer in 2008-09, registering a growth of 50%. There has been overall growth of export of 620% over past five years (2004-09). An investment of Rs. 1, 08,903 corers has been made in SEZs. This includes Foreign Direct Investment of US $ 2.29 billion.( SEZ India 2010)
Name of the Zone Established State
Nokia Special Economic Zone Tamil Nadu
Mahindra City SEZ Tamil Nadu
Apache SEZ (Adidas Group) Andhra Pradesh
Mundra Port and SEZ Gujarat
Moser Baer SEZ, Noida Uttar Pradesh
Wipro Limited Andhra Pradesh
Divvy's Laboratories Limited Andhra Pradesh
Flextronics SEZ Tamil Nadu
ETL Infrastructure IT SEZ Tamil Nadu
Wipro Limited, Karnataka (2 SEZ)
Biocon Limited Karnataka
Serum Bio-Pharma Park Maharashtra
Manyata Promoters Karnataka
Chandigarh Administration, Chandigarh
Hyderabad Gems Limited Hyderabad
Maharashtra ADCL Maharashtra
liance Gujarat, Maharashtra
Suzlon Infrastructure Ltd Many states
Sahara Group Maharashatra
Source: Various national dailies published in India between January1st 2008 and May1st 2010.
On the other side of the coin, SEZ regulation stipulates a minimum land requirement of 1,000 hectors. But most of the multi billion project established in more than minimum required land. Average calculation of minimum land used for SEZ is more than 1, 00,000 hectors. This means millions of people displaced from their ancestral land in this decade. Most of the SEZ projects are private owned or public private partnership. It is run and administered largely by the private sector for generating export oriented and profit making activities. The 1894 Act allows the government to acquire land for a "public purpose". It was originally devised to create a system of irrigation canals and roads. But in recent decades it has been used to buy land from reluctant margin less farmers for private profit oriented business. Forcible acquisition of land under the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894 and discrimination against underprivileged small landholders is the bad side of developing SEZ. At a time of displacement, relief and rehabilitation issues were not clearly resolved and SEZs posed a serious challenge to the regulatory framework governing the acquisition of land.
The Indian corporate giant Reliance has developed a SEZ at Chirner, a suburb in Mumbai. Reliance wants the entire stretch from Navi Mumbai to Dharamtar creek and plans to make it Mumbai's satellite city which would spread over 35,000 acres. The government on its part is acting as a perfect real estate agent and will eventually acquire 45 villages for the Reliance project. Although the government has issued the notifications for land acquisition the local people and local population have no clue for land value. As per the local reports Reliance has been trying to buy up land at Rs.3 lakhs to Rs.4 lakhs for an acre. In contrary, the market rate is said to be anywhere between Rs.20 lakhs and Rs.40 lakhs per acre. This SEZ has displaced 45 villages and 250,000 people (FrontLine 2006). The irony is that most of those land acquired are owned by Agris and Kolis, traditional farmers and fisher men community of Maharashtra, who have already faced many displacement from Mumbai and Navi Mumbai metropolitan.
West Bengal witnessed pitched battles in 2007 at Nandigram and Singur. Nandigram is the site of a proposed 4,050 hectare SEZ to be developed by Indonesia's Selim Group. Singur was the destination of Tata business group to build a car factory on 403.5 hectares of land. Because of people resistants these projects has call back by government authorities (South Asia Revolution 2008). In Andhra Pradesh just two SEZs in Kakinada and Vishakapatnam account for around 16,500 hectares( Kujur 2007). In Maharashtra, the Navi Mumbai SEZ alone is spread over an area of around 5,000 hectares, including 1,850 hectares of regional park zone (NMSEZ 2010). As pert the geographical identification both of these Special Economic Zone areas are constructing in a fertilize land.
To set up such a large number of SEZs there is a need for land on a large scale to be acquired. The total land area of India is 29,73,190 sq km out of which 16,20,388 sq km area is used for agriculture (agricultural area). The share of the agricultural area in the total area is 54.5 per cent and the non-agricultural area in India is 13, 52,802 sq km. The total area for proposed SEZs (formally approved and principle approved) is approximately 2061 sq km which would not be more than 0.069 per cent of the total land area and not more than 0.12 per cent of the total agricultural land in India. (Ministry of Agriculture 2008). In September 2006, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Congress Party, made a statement that expressed concern about the acquisition of prime agricultural land for the establishment of the SEZs. She said that she was concerned about the displacement of agriculturists and directed that there should be greater sensitivity for the concerns of agriculturists while the SEZs were being set up. After this statement Mr Sharad Pawar, the Minister for Agriculture, himself interested in the SEZs in Maharashtra, was quick to give a response that only marginal lands were being used. The Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, said that he had already written to all the Chief Ministers that there should be no acquisition of agricultural lands (Front Line 2006). With the comparison of above statements the ruling party leader and ministers itself declines the arguments of Ministry of Agriculture in the term of utilising fertilised land for establishing Special Economic Zones.
It is clear that from the precedent practices, most of the Special Economic Zones are being planned and structured on fertile land. If we analyse the regional geography of India SEZs are being set up not only on non agricultural land but also on agricultural land especially in the case of Punjab, Haryana, UP, Kerala, West Bengal, and Maharashtra. For example Punjab which considered as the high productive agriculture state of India, have allowed 13 Special Economic Zones owned by Multi National Companies (Punjab News Line 2007). Land for even such gigantic projects was acquired using the coercive powers provided by the Land Acquisition Act 1894. The act narrowly defined persons affected by an acquisition to be either land owners or occupiers. It is offering limited compensation to the affected population. Large scale acquisition covered entire villages and their common property resources like tanks, grazing lands and village forests. Apart from this, the Indian village are consisting of many categories of persons other than land owning farmers and tenant farmers. Agricultural labourers, artisans and other servicing populations while not owning land but depend on it directly or indirectly are also directly affected the displacement . The law, government and authorities did not recognize and considered their rights as affected parties.
At the time of rapid economic development time of the country more than 76% of the Indian population is still living in agricultural field. Agri cantered model of development was prevalent during the 1950s and the 60s. Now also, Agriculture contributes approximately one fifth of total gross domestic product (GDP). It provides the means of livelihood to about two thirds of the country’s population and over 70% of the population still lives in rural areas (European Commission 2007). Agriculture is the key employer with around 60% of the labour force, down from 70% in the early nineties. In details 2000-01, 67% of work force were depending on agricultural sector and contributed about 27% of national income (National Commission for women 2005). This declining share was mainly due to the fall in public investment in rural facilitation particularly since the mid 1990s .Then also it is the single largest private sector occupation. Agriculture accounts for about 10 percent of the total export earnings and provides raw material to a large number of industries. But the controversy is, the Commerce Ministry expects the zones to draw nearly 600 billion Indian rupees ($13.5 billion) in investment by 2010 and create 890,000 jobs. But an internal assessment of the Finance Ministry has estimated that by 2010 the country will drop about Rs.1, 60,000 cores in direct and indirect taxes because of the SEZs across the country. Government of India wants to follow ‘Chinese way’ but while in China there are only six SEZs, in India 123 SEZs have been established just in three years and over 400 SEZs are in pipeline. This shows that proper ground work has not been done before implementing the concept of SEZ in India. It has made a huge imbalanced development attribute to the rural population and villages which has measured as the ‘soul’ of democratic India.
