BJP favours chosen few SEZs

New Delhi, Dec 6 (UNI) Amidst a raging debate on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the country, the BJP today said it totally disagreed with the proliferation of SEZs but instead favoured a well chosen few ones to propel India's exports.

Former BJP President M Venkaiah Naidu, who headed the party's panel on SEZs, said the NDA government had come out with the SEZ scheme in 2000 with an intention of providing internationally competitive environment for exports and make available to these units goods and services free of taxes and duties, integrated infrastructure for export production, quick approval mechanism and a package of incentives to attract foreign and domestic investments.

He said in China there were only six mega sized SEZs as against 400 SEZs sought to be permitted in India. The government should not permit the acquisition of irrigated agricultural lands for these zones. The state governments must prescribe minimum prices for various areas and the SEZ developers should be allowed to obtain land from the farmers through direct purchases paying them market prices.

Releasing a 24-page report containing 16 recommendations, Mr Naidu said rapid acquisition of large tracts of irrigable lands adjacent to major urban centres without proper approvals, had made a Union Minister to term it as 'land scam'. The SEZs were used as a tool to hand over huge tracts of agricultural land to corporate bigwigs. The tearing hurry in which the SEZ projects were approved was obviously without adequate scrutiny and some even without endorsement by the concerned state governments and should be condemned, he said.

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