Although today, Indian economy has multiple pillars, it still encompasses agriculture as a major one. The country realised the effectiveness of the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) model in promoting exports, way back in 1965, when it set up Asia’s first EPZ at Kandla. As in the post globalisation era it was realised that the overall infrastructure and the bureaucratic system of the country was not supportive enough to hold any world-class economic activity. The Special Economic Zones (SEZs) Policy came into picture in April 2000. The Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 received Presidential assent on the 23rd of June, 2005.

The SEZ concept is targeted at generation of additional economic activity, promotion of exports of goods and services, promotion of investment from domestic and foreign sources, creation of employment opportunities, development of infrastructure facilities and so on. In our recent meeting, Andy Chatha, President, ARC Advisory Group, opined, ‘As some other countries have proved, you need a small part of the country for manufacturing and become more productive. What you have to see is the productivity of a piece of land. Can this acre of land produce more farm goods or can you build a factory there and produce more goods? That’s the balance - you need to see.’ I too subscribe to Andy’s view.

However, the problems here lie in - taking over of land pieces, where people had been farming for generations, and also where multinational companies have started acting like real estate agents. Both are serious issues affecting law and order of the country, and naturally needs to be addressed immediately.

If any fertile land is taken over for industrial development, the government has to take care of the interest of the landowners. Giving an employment to one person from the family at a low grade in the upcoming industries, cannot solve the problem. There are plenty of agricultural land pieces in the hands of non-farmers, and fertile non-agricultural land pieces based on either forged or no records. Government urgently needs to take initiative to meticulously scrutinise all the land ownership records, and if the farmers opt to continue to plough, they should be reimbursed with those land pieces. Government also needs to focus on technical skill development of the wards from the affected families practising agriculture irrespective of the type of land (agricultural/ non-agricultural) that they own.