INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - MAY - JUNE 2007
The Month that was ...

NO SEZ LAND TRANSFER WITHOUT FARMERS' NOD

The Union commerce ministry told the Maharashtra government that no land acquisition for SEZs shall be completed till farmers "willingly withdraw their objections" or "give consent to the compensation package" offered by developers.

The clarification, in response to a query from the Maharashtra government, puts paid to all plans for land acquisition anywhere in the country for any SEZ.

In Maharashtra, this development puts the brakes on the state government's plan to start land acquisition in 29 villages of Raigad district for the Maha Mumbai SEZ. Farmers in the state have been protesting against "coercive land acquisition" for private developers. Pune, for instance, recently witnessed farmer protests over the Videocon SEZ.

The plan was to acquire land under Section 6(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The clarification from the Centre means that the state can still go ahead with the formalities involved in the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, but cannot complete the actual process of transfer to the SEZ developer without getting the farmers' consent.

Acquisition under Section 6(1) allows the state government to override objections from owners of the land being acquired. Given that farmer groups had submitted 18,000 objections and threatened to launch a widescale agitation against the imposition of Section 6(1) in the district, the state government cannot transfer land to SEZs without violating the Centre's policy on the subject, reiterated by the commerce ministry.