| With the rehabilitation of displaced people becoming an increasingly controversial issue, the inter-ministerial board of approval (BoA) for special economic zones (SEZs) has postponed its January 19 meeting. This has put on hold the fate of 42 proposals, including the 3,500-acre Tata multi-product SEZ at Gopalpur, Orissa. |
| This is the second time this month that a BoA meeting has been postponed. It was supposed to meet on January 10 to consider 39 SEZ proposals for Maharashtra but the meeting was called off at the last minute. |
| The two postponements have, therefore, resulted in 81 proposals being put in cold storage. |
| The postponements take place against the backdrop of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's suggestion that a rehabilitation policy for displaced people be put in place. A draft policy to this effect is to be submitted by the rural development ministry for Cabinet approval shortly. |
| Commerce ministry sources said the BoA would meet after the empowered group of ministers, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, had discussed the rehabilitation policy. |
| The empowered group of ministers is scheduled to meet on January 22. As of now, however, no date has been fixed for the next BoA meeting. |
| There have been large-scale protests over the land acquisition process for the Indonesia-based Salim group's chemicals SEZ in Nandigram, West Bengal. There are apprehensions that the protests could spread to other parts of the country as well. |
| Till date, 57 SEZs have been notified, in which investments worth Rs 60,000 crore are expected over the next five to ten years. |
| In a presentation to the empowered group of ministers in December, the commerce ministry had said there were 237 formally approved SEZs in the country and 164 SEZs had received approvals in principle. |
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