India Growing, Shining, Rising! All this indeed makes me happy and feel proud about my country. IT and ITES is the choicest sector for the private equity investments, retail industry booming, Indian companies acquiring foreign firms, young entrepreneurs venturing into small & medium sized enterprises, and so on are proof of India’s accelerated growth path. However, amongst all these goodies there was something that was bitter, something that was hitting back very hard – the SEZ chaos and its effects on rural India.
Yes, the rural India – significant part of our country which is often neglected on the roadmap to growth or remembered only during union budgets or at time of calamities. I agree and accept that I also thought of rural India (or the farmlands) when I was going through all the SEZ chaos that has caught up the entire country. It is saddening to know about the farmers committing suicide to protest against the acquisition of agricultural land to convert it into SEZ and government supporting this initiative is amusing. I don’t understand why a fertile agricultural land should be made into a cement-concrete structure. India is an agricultural country (is what I had read in books in my school days) and we should preserve such lands for our ages old productivity. Bengal, Maharashtra, Kerala etc everywhere there is a similar scene – take up land, uproot the farmers (or even general people), take off their livelihood, ask them to settle elsewhere, and construct SEZ on that land. It is absurd that the government or the people who want to acquire land for SEZ do not calculate the implications of this act. First is that the fertile land will be aborted (no more agricultural revenue, no matter how low it is). And the second is the people over there will relocate and move into surrounding areas thus may be over populating those areas, resulting into unemployment, then lack of education, and the cycle would continue. I don’t understand much of economics but what I feel is that India has had a stable economy because of its balanced agricultural and technological growth. If we just keep on running after technology we possibly might see something like Japan’s economy which crashed so badly that it is still recovering.
There is a desperate need to control these SEZ moves or may divert them so that we see a balanced growth that keeps everybody self sufficient and satisfied. An Ex-defence personnel has taken an initiative to stop an upcoming SEZ in Pen, Raigad, Panvel areas in Maharashtra. And recently Infosys Chief Mentor, Narayana Murthy opposed the SEZ policy. He is against the idea of taking land from farmers for SEZs. Also the interference of real estate players has disarrayed the whole SEZ scenario. Narayana Murthy feels that the earlier policy of companies building their own campuses is a fair thing and a viable option.
India has to shine and will keep shining, but the growth has to be planned and prudent. Just having selfish motives to keep filling politicians’, builders’, industrialists’ pockets may someday require us to rename Delhi to Tokyo.
Yes, the rural India – significant part of our country which is often neglected on the roadmap to growth or remembered only during union budgets or at time of calamities. I agree and accept that I also thought of rural India (or the farmlands) when I was going through all the SEZ chaos that has caught up the entire country. It is saddening to know about the farmers committing suicide to protest against the acquisition of agricultural land to convert it into SEZ and government supporting this initiative is amusing. I don’t understand why a fertile agricultural land should be made into a cement-concrete structure. India is an agricultural country (is what I had read in books in my school days) and we should preserve such lands for our ages old productivity. Bengal, Maharashtra, Kerala etc everywhere there is a similar scene – take up land, uproot the farmers (or even general people), take off their livelihood, ask them to settle elsewhere, and construct SEZ on that land. It is absurd that the government or the people who want to acquire land for SEZ do not calculate the implications of this act. First is that the fertile land will be aborted (no more agricultural revenue, no matter how low it is). And the second is the people over there will relocate and move into surrounding areas thus may be over populating those areas, resulting into unemployment, then lack of education, and the cycle would continue. I don’t understand much of economics but what I feel is that India has had a stable economy because of its balanced agricultural and technological growth. If we just keep on running after technology we possibly might see something like Japan’s economy which crashed so badly that it is still recovering.
There is a desperate need to control these SEZ moves or may divert them so that we see a balanced growth that keeps everybody self sufficient and satisfied. An Ex-defence personnel has taken an initiative to stop an upcoming SEZ in Pen, Raigad, Panvel areas in Maharashtra. And recently Infosys Chief Mentor, Narayana Murthy opposed the SEZ policy. He is against the idea of taking land from farmers for SEZs. Also the interference of real estate players has disarrayed the whole SEZ scenario. Narayana Murthy feels that the earlier policy of companies building their own campuses is a fair thing and a viable option.
India has to shine and will keep shining, but the growth has to be planned and prudent. Just having selfish motives to keep filling politicians’, builders’, industrialists’ pockets may someday require us to rename Delhi to Tokyo.
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