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The Special Economic Zone Act, 2005 received the assent of the President of India on 23rd June 2005 to provide for the establishment, development and management of the Special Economic Zones for the promotion of exports and for matters connected
therewith or incidental thereto. The diversity of resistance to the SEZ policy across the country offers encouraging conclusions for the resilience of democracy in the country. From Barnala in Punjab and Jhajjar in Haryana to Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and Nandagudi in Karnataka, from Nandigram in West Bengal and Jagat Singh Pur in Orissa, in the East from Raigad, Mangalore and Goa to the West coast of India, farmers, landless-workers, fish-workers and artisans have expressed their anger against the loss of land, livelihood and habitat. In some cases, as in Nandigram and in Goa, projects have been cancelled. In some cases, SEZ land is being de-notified, despite the SEZ Act. In Goa, people's struggle has been so successful that the SEZ policy has been abandoned by the government recently. The West Bengal Government acquired level fertile agricultural land in West Medinipur for Tata Metaliks in 1992, leading to dispossessing small and marginal farmers, in preference to undulating wasteland that was available nearby.

In the case of the Century Textiles Pig Iron Plant in the same area, the state government acquired about 525 acres of land for a proposed plant in 1996. However, till 2003 the factory had not come up and neither had all the original land owners been fully compensated. The company had decided that pig iron production was no longer profitable and refused to pay the compensation and take over the land. Singur is another example of the same government acquiring prime agricultural land for a car factory, The Tata Motors. State governments have not hesitated to acquire land even (mis)using draconian emergency powers available in the Land Acquisition Act. A case in point is the Tamil Nadu government's acquisition of land near Pulicat Lake north of Chennai for a petro-chemical complex. Recently, due to Land Acquisition in Atchutapuram, near Visakhapatnam, the farmers have declared war against the setting up of SEZ in their lands. The land compensation money that the state government is giving is very less in comparison to the actual market rate of the land, and this has angered the farmers even more. This is bound to inspire workers and peasants in other states to continue and accelerate their protests against SEZs to protect their livelihood. Thus, SEZs have become a burning issue and are currently under the scanner.

The backlash has been on the issue of land acquisition, or the exercise of "eminent domain", the common law principle underlying the state's power to acquire private property for public purpose. Increasingly, in developed countries, due to space crunch in prime areas, governments have been expanding the scope of public purpose to include various commercial uses.

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Dr. Gursharan Singh Kainth started his career as Lecturer at Post Graduate Dept. of Economics, Government College, Gurdaspur, and later at Khalsa College; Amritsar, specializes in Quantitative & Development Economics. Has the distinction of serving Punjab Agricultural Univ, Ludhiana, for more than 2 decades and remained Director-Principal of Saint Soldier Management & Technical Institute, Jalandhar. Currently, heading GAD Institute of Development Studies, Amritsar, a self-financed research institute. Has been honoured with various awards, including Guru Draunacharya Samman, Vijay Rattan Award, etc.
Article posted on January 17, 2009.