truth about SEZs

THE LAND USE PLAN MASKING ITSELF IN DIFFERENT FORMS
-Albertina Almeida (SEZ watch)

An important issue related to the Regional Plan that has got little attention is the Special Economic Zones. What are Special Economic Zones? Planet Mars on Planet Earth? Foreign territory within our territory? “A designated duty free enclave and to be treated as foreign territory for trade operations and duties and tariffs”, as the Government of India’s website on Special Economic Zones puts it. So there you are – by the Government’s own admission, we are inviting colonization - this time in a different form. It is colonization by transnational and national corporate capital. We worry about “outsiders” who till and toil over our territory, and do not want to give them their due. But we don’t care about outsiders and so also the insiders who grab and deprive the people in Goa and edge them out of their land and livelihood.

The Land Use Plan prepared by the State has been coming in different garbs. As a Regional Plan drawn to satisfy the interests of corporate capital and hence is not about planning with people at its centre. Under the garb of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) which are about anything and everything in enclaves where the laws of the land will not apply. So the labour laws, CRZ laws, criminal laws, tax laws, etc. do not apply in the SEZs in the way that they do to the rest of the country. It comes under the garb of an IT Park under the Goa IT Policy, which has similar ingredients as the SEZ policy OR of a biotech/food park under the Goa Biotech Policy, which again bears striking resemblance to the SEZ Policy. It is not as if we do not want IT or food, for that matter, but the question is what and how. When they are SEZ or SEZ-like, it is not about IT and food anymore.

Given that the land use plan is coming in different forms, there is a need to debate and highlight the core issues around which the struggle lies. The Government of Goa tries to say it has not sanctioned any SEZs in Goa. It is like the play of words that said the Plan is denotified and then quietly added “with prospective effect”. Yes, it is not the local Minister that sanctions the SEZs. It is the Board of Approval at the Centre, constituted under the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005, which does. But let us not forget that India is a federal country and there are still many subjects which Special Economic Zones span which come within the powers of the States. It is precisely because of this that each State is required to have its own SEZ policy. If the Goa Government wished, it could have had an SEZ Policy that does not provide any exemptions from any State taxes, levies and duties to the Developer or the entrepreneur. It could have had a policy where land acquired by it through the Goa Industrial Development Corporation for industrial purposes is used for that purpose and not for SEZs. It needs to be noted that as yet, no area in Goa has yet been notified as an SEZ by the Board of Approval at the Centre. And the Goa Government can put its foot down about this ‘respecting the wishes of the people’.

Any proposal for approval of SEZ developer can go through the State or directly to the Board of Approval but if it is made directly to the Board of Approval and approved, the SEZ developer requires the concurrence of the State Government. So the State does have a say. But would they, i.e. any of the politicians in Goa have the gumption to stand up against these powerful corporate money-bags from whom they derive the finances to finance their elections? From whom they derive the finances to line, oops sorry fill their pockets, oops sorry bags, oops sorry buildings, oops sorry lands?

There is nothing special about Special Economic Zones for the people in Goa. It is a case of “Fullu Fustar foznnem”. If we have protested against the Regional Plan, it is because we were questioning the processes by which the Regional Plan did not give voice to the aspirations of the people, and disregarded the spirit of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution devolving planning powers to Panchayats and Municipalities. And here we have a proposed development in the shape of SEZs – where the panchayats, municipalities and the people will have no say because the Goa SEZ policy clearly states that the State Government will take appropriate steps to declare the SEZs as industrial townships to enable the SEZs to function as self-governing, autonomous municipal bodies. Another form of zoning altogether!!!

Again, are we not already aware that the IT Parks are nothing but real estate scams? Where contracts are awarded not to those who are skilled in IT but those who are skilled in “it”? How long will it take us to understand that the SEZs, given the designed lack of transparency, are inherently conducive for real estate scams as well? How else does one explain GIDC’s agreements with M/s K. Raheja Corporation Pvt. Ltd., M/s Paradigm Logistics & Distribution Pvt. Ltd., M/s Meditab Specialities Pvt. Ltd., M/s Peninsula Pharma Research Centre Pvt. Ltd., M/s Planet View and M/s Inox Mercantile for leasing out land for SEZ and allied activities? That it has leased out land to the first four which is much more than the land that even the Board of Approval had approved of? Who are they deceiving? We want neither the gloss over and push through approach of the Congress by which the Goa SEZ policy was pushed through nor the fascist “touch-me-not, don’t-question-me, we-are-always-right” approach of BJP and its local legislature party head nor the NCP approach which acquiesces in governance and decision-making by circulation or by receptivity to deceptive announcements at cabinet meetings!

There is now talk about letting the SEZ developers deal directly with the land owners. Sorry, if there is a thrust towards SEZs by the State, then given the clout that these developers wield and which is strengthened by the SEZ Act, where the laws of the land can legitimately be thrown to the winds, these developers are bound to bully people into giving up their lands using bouncers and goons and the State’s policing machinery as well. As they tried to do and in some instances did with the support of the State in the now case celebre of ‘Aldeia de Goa’.

There is also a tendency on the part of the State to say that they are acquiring/leasing large tracts of wastelands and hilly terrains on which no agricultural activity is possible. This is false. While in some cases prime yielding land has been slaughtered in pursuance of the zoning change permitted by the Regional Plan, in other cases there is an issue with what are perceived as wastelands. For instance, rocky areas where grass grows on which cattle in the village are brought for grazing is perceived as wasteland or unproductive land. There is a serious perception issue here. What about the people who draw their livelihoods from these lands? When will we begin to think people-centric? People’s Economic Zones, not Special Economic Zones, the group SEZ Watch in Goa has voiced as a people’s demand.

So call them Regional Plan nature-destroying zoning changes, call them SEZs, call them IT Parks under the IT Policy, they are all to be looked at with a microscopic lens and scrapped/not allowed, and a people’s planning process initiated.