SEZ, What is That?

It is a curious fact that till the countryside erupted over the SEZ question in 2006, the Indian Parliament had not even once discussed the subject. It had only figured as questions in both houses of Parliament. The tenor of the questions too was only about whether or how many projects had got the approvals necessary in order to begin operations. None of those queries had anything to say about land.

As we have said before, SEZ was made operational by the Exim policy of 2000. Finance minister Yashwant Sinha, in his budget speech for the year 2000–2001, stated the general policy. But SEZ did not figure either in the general discussion on budget or thereafter in any of the two houses of Parliament.

Industry too, after making the usual round of platitudes, more or less forgot the offer. There was a good reason for the forgetfulness.

SEZ, as conceptualized by the BJP party led National Democratic Alliance, was a scheme. Industry captains knew pretty well that schemes could be and were often reversed as soon as the regime changed at the centre. That did not mean that industrialists did not use those schemes or policies to make hay. The centre doles out subsidies to public sector oil marketing companies for the losses they suffer for having to sell kerosene and cooking gas at far less than their cost prices.