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Maharashtra government's decision to stay the land acquisition process for Videocon's SEZ at Wagholi, near Pune, would affect the land acquisition process for other SEZs in the state, according to senior state officials.
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and other ministers like to boast that of the 450 SEZs coming up in the country, nearly 120 are in Maharashtra. However, since most of the SEZs are single product or IT SEZ, land acquisition is not much of an issue.
But in the case of six SEZs, which are multi-product SEZs and where over 1,000 hectares of land have to be acquired, it is proving to be an albatross around the state government's neck.
These six SEZs include Reliance Industries' Mumbai SEZ in Raigadh district where 10,000 hectares of land needs to be acquired, two SEZs promoted by Videocon which will need 2,500 hectares and 1,000 hectares at Aurnagabad and Pune respectively.
The rest of them are Mahindra and Mahindra's SEZ at Karle in Pune district, Bharat Forge promoted SEZ at Rajgurunagar in Pune district and India Bulls promoted SEZ Alibaug taluka of Raigad district.
At all these places, in spite of stiff opposition from farmers, the state government has maintained that no forcible land acquisition will be done. But the state government has not withdrawn or given a stay to the land acquisition process itself.
However, the case of Wagholi is different from other places, as it falls in Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's Barmati Lok Sabha constituency, pointed out informed sources.
They also claimed that the state government's industrial infrastructure arm MIDC, which is acquiring the land on behalf of the state government, initiated the process of land acquisition at the behest of Pawar. The minister reportedly feels that this land is ideally suitable for industrial development.
The fact that Pawar is in favour of industrial development at the site has been mentioned in black and white in MIDC's file on the industrial park cum SEZ at Wagholi, said sources.
The sources feel that there will be tremendous pressure on the state government to extend similar stay to the other SEZs or cancel the process of land acquisition completely.
Vaishali Patil, spokesperson of the Anti- Mahamumbai SEZ Action Committee said, "We feel this is a victory of Wagholi's farmers' unity and this should be a lesson for the other farmers whose land is being acquired for SEZs."
"I think we have to intensify our agitation to force the state government to denotify the land for Mumbai SEZ as well," she added.
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