30,000 hectares of lands in 20 states unutilised, Supreme Court informed

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre and seven states seeking their response to a PIL seeking return of the lands acquired for SEZ to the farmers if lands are not utilised for the same.

Senior counsel Colin Gonzalves and counsel Sravan Kumar submitted to the court that out of about 45,000 hectares of lands acquired by 20 states for SEZs, about 30,000 hectares had not been utilised but these lands are being used by industrialists to obtain loans from banks for other purposes.

The association sought the intervention of this court for providing necessary relief, compensation for keeping the land vacant for a long time and return of the land to tribals, farmers and other weaker sections of society suffering from the harsh effects of unnecessary, unmindful and unwarranted land acquisition for SEZ.

It said the acquisition of lands has resulted in livelihood crisis, migration, fodder shortage for cattle, increasing debt burden on farmers leading to suicides by farmers. It pointed out that the government has admitted in the Rajya Sabha that as high as 40 per cent of the total land acquired for SEZ across 20 states remains unutilised up to March 13, 2015.

The petition noted that over 77 per cent of the notified SEZ land is concentrated in four states - Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. These states have acquired 35,415 hectares of land out of 45,782 hectares of total land acquired by the 20 states for which data is provided by the government. What is important here is these four states are also among the states with high ratio of unutilised SEZ land. About 20 per cent of the total SEZ land remains unutilised in Andhra Pradesh; about 39% in Gujarat; 47% in Maharashtra and 53% in Tamil Nadu, it said.