The two interviews, one, of the man who spearheaded the anti-SEZ movement and the other the then president of the GCCI who supports SEZs and yet believes that the plan of reserving 30% of the plots for SEZ promoters is not the right way forward. GLENN COSTA and SHWETA KAMAT report
A total of 38,40,886 sq mtrs of land was allotted for SEZs by Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) in 2006. Government had recommended 15 cases of Special Economic Zones, for setting up in Goa, out of the 15 cases, 7 cases were
approved by the Ministry of Commerce.
Further, out of the seven, three SEZs were notified by the Government, while remaining four were formally approved but not notified. As regards the remaining 8 SEZs, no statutory approvals were granted. After massive public protests in 2006-
08, the Digambar Kamat led government in Goa at that time had decided to scrap seven SEZs and withdraw
the state SEZ policy. Despite divisions in the Cabinet over the projects, Kamat said ‘No’ to SEZs on January 1,
2008. Since then, the denotification of the SEZs had remained pending despite Congress government’s repeated demand to denotify
the same.
Congress delegation
with then CM and MP South Goa, meet
Kamal Nath with a demand to de-notify
the notified SEZs
The then Union minister for commerce
Kamal Nath, had over ruled the Secretary
Commerce GK Pillai and favoured the
de-notification of three SEZs. He had
also assured Goa that the Centre would
not impose SEZs. In 2009, the Congress
delegation led by former Chief Minister
Digambar Kamat, Member of Parliament
Shantaram Naik, then South Goa MP
Francisco Sardinha met the then Commerce
Minister Kamal Nath with a demand to scrap
three SEZ units in Goa notified at that stage.
Kamal Nath tells 3 SEZs companies
that they cannot go ahead with plans if
the state does not want to
In one of their meetings with the
minister, the minister had even called the
three companies who were applicants and
informed them that if State Government
does not want SEZs, there is no way, the
applicants can go ahead with the SEZs.
Thereafter, Commerce Minister
Anand Sharma instructed officials to
issue de-notification orders
Subsequently the matter was followed
with the new Minister Anand Sharma and,
in one of his meetings with the minister, the
minister even wrote on his memorandum
giving instructions to his officials to issue
orders to de-notify the said units.
Before the de-notification order
could be notified in the gazette,
companies went to the Supreme Court
However, before the memorandum
could become part of Gazette the minister
came to know that the units could not be
de-notified in view of the challenge given to
the matter by the powerful companies in the
Supreme Court.
Goa’s Rajya Sabha MP, Shantaram Naik
subsequently met Sharma trying to convince
him that since there is no specific order of
injunction given by the court restraining the
government from de-notifying the SEZ units,
government could have well gone ahead
with de-notification, but Sharma wanted to
wait for Supreme Court verdict.
Current official status of land
allotment
Earlier this week, the Union Minister of
State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala
Sitharaman, in a reply to a question on
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the Rajya
Sabha, said that a petition by the developers
of three SEZs against the Goa Bench of
Bombay High Court’s order of November
26, 2010 was pending before the Supreme
Court. They challenged the Order of the
High Court, declaring as illegal the allotment
of land to the SEZ developers by the Goa
Industrial Development Corporation. “The
allotment as well as lease deeds executed
on the basis of the orders of allotment were
consequently quashed and set aside,” the
minister said.
Three developers of the SEZs who
have gone to the Supreme Court against
cancellation of the allotment notifications
issued in 2007.
