The Anti-Mumbai Special Economic Zone Action Committee (AMSEZAC) today announced its version of the results of the referendum in 22 villages to be covered by Reliance Industries’ proposed SEZ. The committee claimed 91 per cent farmers voted against the project.
The state government had held a referendum as these villages fall in the command area of the Hetavane dam and according to the modified SEZ policy of 2007, irrigated land cannot be acquired for SEZs.
These 22 villages cover around 3,000 hectares of land. Mumbai SEZ Ltd (MSEZL), which is developing the SEZ, claims that out of 3,000 hectares, it has acquired about 730 hectares. Addressing a press conference, the president of the Anti-Mumbai SEZ Action Committee and veteran Marxist leader from the state, ND Patil, said 80 per cent eligible voters participated in the September 21st franchise and out of those, 91 per cent said they would not give their land for the SEZ.
According to the figures provided by the district collector, little over 6,300 out of the 23,000 eligible voters participated in the voting process, which was mistaken by the media as a low turnout. However, as every farmer has more than one or two land accounts, in reality, these 6,300 votes represented nearly 19,000 votes, claimed Patil.
As there was no standard ballot paper, anti-SEZ activists had distributed their version of ‘No’ ballot paper to farmers in triplicate. One was submitted to the state government machinery, another was collected by the activists posted outside the election booths and the third was kept by the farmer.
“We collected 5,866 such ‘No’ ballot papers. An analysis of this clearly shows 91 per cent of the farmers have said a big no to the SEZ,” Patil emphasised.
More From This Section
Alleging that the government was non-committal on making result of the referendum public, as overwhelming majority of the farmers had said no to the SEZ, Patil warned the government that if it failed to make the referendum public by October 21, AMSEZAC would intensify its agitation to remove these 22 villages from the MSEZ project.
When contacted, district collector Nipun Vinayak said, “We are in the process of finalising our report and waiting for a report from the irrigation department on availability of water for various sectors.”
Ulka Mahajan of the committee claimed that even those landowners who had partially sold or were in the process of selling their land to the MSEZL had voted against completely selling their land. “Once the Land Acquisition Act comes into force, no other land transactions are allowed except for the purpose for which the land has been notified. Some people were in need of money and partially sold their land to MSEZL”, Mahajan pointed out
The committee launched a scathing attack on chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh for his statement that the government never held a “referendum” over the SEZ and that the “public hearing” in Pen would not be a method for other SEZ projects.