Citizens’ Research Collective on SEZ

Mangalore, March 18, 2008: Farmers are selling land not because they are in favour of Special Economic Zones or because their farms are infertile but because farming has been rendered unprofitable. If the reforms in farm credit and price stabilisation policies are implemented, no farmer would want to dispose his land, the State president of Karnataka Pranta Raitha Sangha, Maruthi Manpade, has said.

Speaking at a seminar to discuss the issues related to land acquisition in the district here on Monday, he alleged that the Government was recklessly snatching land from farmers and giving it to large industrialists in the private sector. District secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) B. Madhava said that his party was opposed to the SEZ Act of 2005. He advocated for major amendments to the Act and said that in its present form, the act played into the hands of real estate developers and the land mafia.

Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the seminar Mr. Madhava said that his party had not rejected the concept of MSEZ like other groups had done.

“There are some areas of concern in the MSEZ Act that need to be sorted out. Our endeavour is to stand by the people and ensure that their demands are met,” he said.Stating that the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 was outdated, he said that his party was going to press for an amendment to the Act.

Chandrashekar Damle, an agricultural expert from the Sullia-based Nehru Memorial College, who quoted the National Sample Survey Data of 2000, said that 48 per cent of farmers in Karnataka were indebted and 70 per cent of them frustrated.

Instead of changing the land-use pattern, greater farm expenditure and increased attempts from the Government to boost capital formation in the farm sector could be better solutions. “Land should be wrangled out of the hands of large holders and its ownership be decentralised,” he said.

Source: The Hindu