SC notice to Telangana on unused SEZs

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Centre and seven states, including Tamil Nadu, on a PIL seeking return of unused land acquired for setting up of special economic zones (SEZs) to farmers and a court-monitored CBI probe into alleged flouting of SEZ rules by corporates.

A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao issued notice to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Punjab, on the PIL which alleged that almost 80 per cent of the land acquired for the SEZs were lying unused.

The special economic zones farmers Protection Welfare Association, an NGO, alleged that in last five years alone, 4,842.38



hectares of land was acquired for various SEZs and only 362 hectares were utilised, leaving around 4,480 hectares unused.The PIL referred to a CAG report of 2012-13 and said not only have the farmers been deprived of their land, but also consequential benefits like employment generation and industrialisation of the acquired areas have not taken place. Some companies, for whose SEZs the plots were acquired, raised loans by mortgaging the land documents as collateral securities with banks, but strangely did not use the loan money to develop these SEZs, the PIL said.

“In four states, 100 percent of the SEZ land acquired remains unutilised, while in seven out of 20 states 50 per cent of the total land acquired under SEZ remains unutilised.”