The state will support any initiative by farmers to set up SEZs of their own if they fulfil the necessary conditions, state industries minister Ashok Chavan said.
Farmers will be on a par with industry on SEZs, says minister
MUMBAI: The state will support any initiative by farmers to set up special economic zones (SEZs) of their own if they fulfil the necessary conditions, state industries minister Ashok Chavan told DNA on Friday.
“Our priority is to promote industries in the state. Who sets up an industry is not an issue. If farmers are doing it, we will support them as well,” said Chavan. He was commenting on a DNA story on the growing trend in and around Pune, where farmers are forming companies to do business in forthcoming SEZs.
Avsari Khurd, 40 km from Pune, has actually pooled in over 3,500 acres of unirrigated land and is seeking SEZ status for it.
A few other villages in Pune district are also in the process of forming their own companies, but with a difference. Unlike Avsari Khurd, these villages are seeking to form a company to utilise the 15% developed land they will get as compensation for land acquired for SEZs.
Under a compensation policy evolved by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), villages which are acquired for industrial purposes or SEZs will not only receive cash compensation for their land, but also 15% of the developed land free of cost.
That this policy is working well is evident from the growing chorus of protests in Nagpur demanding similar treatment. The farmers of Shivangaon village near Nagpur are protesting against recent land acquisition for the proposed multi-modal hub and airport because they are being given cash and not the 15% developed land. They are demanding a similar package for themselves.
“The government should consider giving us at least 12.5% developed land apart from the cash compensation; we’ll also form a collective and utilise the land for our sustenance,” Baba Dawre told DNA from Nagpur. Dawre is currently spearheading the protests against the acquisition of land for the expansion of Nagpur airport under the multi-modal hub and airport project.
“This should become a policy for all SEZs – old and new – across the state, including the ones coming up in Vidarbha,” West Nagpur MLA Devendra Fadnavis told DNA. “In the case of the SEZ being developed by the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC), no clear-cut decision has been taken yet, though the villagers have demanded that they should be given 12.5% developed land in the SEZ,” he said.
But the MADC-developed SEZ is such that it has no space for smaller companies. “So even if the farmers form their own company here, the MADC will not support it,” he said.
The government has, however, approved a compensation package prepared by the Pune district collector for four villages which are being acquired for an SEZ to be jointly developed by MIDC and Bharat Forge in Khed taluka. MIDC will be giving back 15% of the developed land to a company being formed by the farmers of the four villages apart from cash compensation.
Chavan said: “It’s a good development that farmers are forming their own companies (or collectives).”
These villages are in fact taking a leaf from the Magarpatta township model in Pune city. About 120 farmers had pooled in their land in the nineties to develop a modern township and IT park, an initiative that is now catching the imagination of villages that are set to lose their lands to SEZ projects and housing townships.
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