SEZs

One of the major UPA government scandals is the manner in which it has permitted mushrooming of over 400 proposed Special Economic Zones (SEZs) all over the country. By distorting a sound SEZ policy formulated by the NDA government, it has allowed many promoters to turn SEZs into the biggest land-grab rackets in the history of independent India.
This is evident from the fact that, under the UPA government's framework of SEZ, the promoters are allowed to retain as much as 65%-75% of the acquired land for non-processing purposes, that is, for purposes other than the industries and services for which the SEZ is sought to be established. All the attractive incentives available to the processing zone will also be available to the land under the much larger non-processing zone. The current legal framework of SEZs also creates number of disadvantages to industries and business in the Domestic Trading Area (DTA) with the distinct possibility of many of them turning sick.
Not surprisingly, many real estate companies, which have no track record in manufacturing or export business, have overnight become SEZ promoters. It is one of the worst-kept secrets of the UPA government that granting permission to establish SEZs has become a huge sources of corruption for the ruling party. This is a repeat of what happened in one of the biggest corruption scandals that rocked the Congress government in the early 1990s, when telecom licences were issued to all and sundry on considerations other than merit. Experts have already warned that many of the proposed SEZs will either not come up, or will not be successful. Never the less, they will have succeeded in dispossessing kisans, khetmazdoors (farm labour) and other allied rural workers of their sustaining and traditional sources of livelihood.