“SEZs are here to stay. However, only the promoters with long term perspective will survive,” said Rajiv Jalota, chief executive officer of Maharashtra Industrial Corporation. He was delivering a lecture in the concluding session of the conference.

V S Deodhar, principal of Ness Wadia, Hemant Deosthali, vice principal of Ness Wadia, Deepak Shetty and Suhas Mahajan were present on the occasion.

Jalota stated that SEZs will work very well if the landowners are involved in the project and the benefits of development are passed on to them by providing them with 15 per cent of the developed land and by empowering them with a long term sustainable model of income generation.

To avoid problems pertaining to SEZs, the MIDC has devised a policy of rehabilitation of landowners by offering them with wealth management services, where panels of experts guide them to make the right kind of investments from the money earned from the sale of land for the SEZ purpose. Secondly, the MIDC acquires land only through negotiations and with the consent of farmers. Only barren land is acquired for the SEZ purpose. Job-oriented training is also provided to the family members of the farmers.

According to Jalota, most felt that SEZs was a real estate game because of the provision of development of non-processing areas that can be used for any purpose other than manufacturing, which can even go up to 65 per cent in the multi-product SEZs. However, it would not have been a viable option for private players to develop space only for manufacturing / processing purpose and it would have halted the private participation.

He also expressed concern over the negative portrayal of SEZ. Boost to manufacturing will take the benefits of development to the larger spectrum of society and SEZs are the only way of doing the same, Jalota concluded.