SEZs will not hamper agricultural production: Minister

New Delhi, Mar 21 (UNI) The government today informed the Rajya Sabha that total land required for setting up 234 Special Economic Zones (SEZ) was 33,807 hectares and allayed fears it would hamper agricultural production in over 100 million hectares in the country.

Answering Mr R K Dhoot, Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh in a written reply said more than half of these lands was already in possesion of various State Industrial Development Corporations while rest of the 17,800 hectares of land was in the possession of developers of SEZs.

The Minister denied there was a proposal to allow 75 per cent of FDI in retail in Special Economic Zones and said the objective of setting up SEZs was to bring overall development and to generate additional economic activities he said answering Mr V Hanumantha Rao. He said there was no small scale sector specific SEZ policy.

He said 10 hectares was minimum land area requirement for sector specific SEZ for electronic hardware and Information Technology including ITES.

To a question of Mr C Ramachandraiah, Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said after the SEZ act came into operation in February 2006 in Andhra Pradesh 45 formal approvals for setting up SEZs in the state were granted. He denied that the government was considering a proposal to declare some of the Union Territories as SEZ in toto.

To another question, the Minister conceded that National Human Rights Commission had issued a notice to A P Government regarding the acquisition of land for various purposes including for SEZs. The land acquisition in Polavaram was for building a dam and not an SEZ, he added.

UNI