Hyderabad: The chances of the state government returning unused lands allotted for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to farmers, looks remote.
A case is pending in the Supreme Court filed by a farmers’ association seeking return of unused land to farmers across the country.
The Supreme Court in January this year issued notices to the Central government and seven states, including Telangana, to respond to the petition, which it is likely to hear next month.
The TS government is preparing a report stating that a majority of the SEZs are functional and the few that are non-functional have come up on land that belongs to the government and as such there is no unused land to be returned.
The PIL alleged that almost 80 per cent of the land acquired from farmers by the state government for SEZs was lying unused.
The petition was filed by the SEZ Farmers Protection Welfare Association. It said that in the last five years alone, 4,842.38 hectares of land has been acquired for various SEZs across the country and only 362 hectares has been used for the purpose, which leaves around 4,480 hectares unused.
According to the TS Industrial Development and Infrastructure Corporation, the state government has notified 70 SEZs. Only 30 are operational, while 40 are non-functional or semi-functional.
Twenty of the 40 non-functioning SEZs failed to commence any operations at all and the Telangana State government is seeking cancellation of their SEZ status and has taken back the land too. The rest 20 SEZs are now at various stages of operation and will be fully operational within a few months. These are the facts the TS government wants to present before the court.
A TSIIC official said, “There is no unused land in TS now allotted to SEZs which can be returned to farmers. The unused land in 20 SEZs was not acquired from farmers and belongs to the state government. The government has already taken possession of these lands. The remaining SEZs are under various stages of operation and will be functional within six months. All this will be submitted before the apex court.”
Interestingly, most of the 20 non-functioning SEZs are owned by Deccan Infrastructure and Land Holdings Ltd, a company floated by previous Congress governments, between 2004 and 2009, to promote housing and real estate around Hyderabad.
