Refuting claims that special economic zones (SEZs) were hitting farmers hard, a top commerce secretary, G K Pillai today said that SEZs were actually creating wealth for farmers.

Pillai said that SEZs had created more wealth for farmers than "any other activity carried out for them after independence. He estimated that SEZs would have created between Rs60,000 crore to Rs100,000 crore in wealth for farmers who gave their land for setting up SEZs in the country.

He also said that the development of SEZs had pushed up farmland prices to an all-time high. He pointed out that with the development of the Mundra SEZ in Gujarat, the land had shot up from just Rs30,000 per acre to Rs1 crore per acre.

He clarified that the government had approved 234 SEZ throughout the country, which involved only 34,000 hectares of land.

He justified SEZs on the grounds of their export potential saying that the government expected exports of Rs1,00,000 crore from SEZs by 2009. "The total exports from SEZ recorded 52 per cent growth at Rs34,787 crore in 2006-07, which would jump to Rs67,000 crore in 2007-08," he said.