Protests end four SEZ projects in Maharashtra

Bowing to intense local opposition, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp has cancelled four joint-venture projects between the state and private companies to develop special economic zones (SEZs).

The state has denotified 8,700 hectares of agriculture land for the projects, effectively returning it to the farmers from whom it was sought to be taken.

The SEZs cancelled are the India Bulls project on over 1,936 hectares at Ranjankhar in Raigad district; Mahindra & Mahindra's on 3,000 ha project in Karla in Pune district, and Videocon's two SEZs at Gandheli in Aurangabad district (2,736 ha) and Wagholi in Pune (2,763 ha).

At a meeting with minister for industries Narayan Rane, the MIDC moved a proposal to cancel the projects on the grounds that it had failed to acquire land for any of the four proposed SEZs.

The projects were proposed in 2008 on reportedly arable multi-crop land, but they ran into opposition immediately, even resulting in police firing.

''The opposition was so intense that government officials who went to the villages to survey the land to be acquired were hounded and chased away. After some point, no government official could even enter the villages,'' DNA cited a source as saying.

SEZs have not really taken off in Maharashtra. Several SEZ projects in the state have run aground due to the state's inability to acquire land.

According to an estimate, only 18 of the 104 approved projects are operational. Some 27 bidders for SEZs have submitted applications for withdrawal due to unfavourable economic conditions in the state.