No fresh land acquisition for 234 approved SEZs

New Delhi, Mar 7: The Government today said there has been no fresh acquisition of land in connection with the 234 valid formal approvals granted till date for setting up special economic zones (SEZs), the Rajya Sabha was informed today.

"In the 234 valid formal approvals granted till date, the extent of land involved 33,807 hectares of which about 17,800 hectares of land was already in ownership or possession of State Industrial Development Corporations," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jairam Ramesh said in a written reply.

He said the Ministry of Rural Development was formulating a revised National Rehabilitation Policy to minimise displacement and to promote as far as possible adequate rehabilitation packages and expeditious implementation of the rehabilitation process with the active participation of the displaced persons.

"As and when the new policy is implemented, it will apply to acquisition of land for industrial projects including SEZs," Mr Ramesh said.

Assuring that guidelines had been issued to state governments regarding land acquisition for SEZs as land was a state subject, Mr Ramesh said first priority was to acquire waste and barren land and, if necessary, single crop agricultural land had to be acquired to meet the minimum area requirement especially for multi-product SEZs, it should not exceed 10 per cent of the total land required for the SEZ.

To another question, the Minister said since the operationalisation of the SEZ Act, 2005 and the SEZ Rules 2006 there were 234 valid formal approvals and 162 valid in-principle approvals for setting up SEZs. Another 322 proposals had been received for setting up SEZs.

"However, in some of the 162 cases where in-principle approval had been given, the state governments have initiated land acquisition proceedings," he said, noting that various representations received in this regard had been placed before the Empowered Group of Ministers.

UNI