BJP to submit report on restructure of SEZ policy: Venkaiah

Chennai, Nov 14 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will soon submit a report to the Centre on the need to restructure the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy, in the wake of raging controversy over creation of SEZs at the cost of farm lands, senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu said today.

Talking to newsperons here, he said the party, which had taken up a study on the various issues involved in SEZs, would finalise its report shortly and submit it first to the party High Command and then to the government.

He said the BJP would also raise the issue in the coming winter session of Parliament as it was bound to be a major controversial issue in the coming days.

Mr Naidu warned that the country would face a serious food crisis if the Centre and the state governments allowed acquisition of cultivable and fertile lands for the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

The party, in principle, was not opposed to SEZs, but it was against giving cultivable and fertile lands for the zones, he said.

When the population was growing at 1.8 per cent, the growth in the food production was only 1.3 per cent in the country and if more and more farm lands were given for SEZs, it would only lead to a food crisis. ''Already we are importing wheat, pulses and oil seeds,'' he pointed out.

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