New Delhi: Left intellectuals and social activists on Monday slammed the Central and state governments for promoting Special Economic Zones (SEZ).
They said the SEZ has led to displacement of people and civil strife.
Historians like Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar and social activists Praful Bidwai, Arjun Sen Gupta and Vandana Shiva demanded immediate scrapping of the ‘anti-labour’ SEZ Act.
“SEZs are an altogether distorted path of industrial development and cannot be of any interest to the vast majority of the common masses of the country," PTI quoted a resolution adopted at the seminar.
According the resolution, SEZs will be utilised only for promoting Export Oriented Units of industrial activities, real estates and amusement parks besides will also encourage shifting of industrial units from the present sites so that they can enjoy tax relaxation.
"The state governments are competing amongst themselves for offering several undue advantages to the investors without caring a little for the land losers and the environmental or ecological concerns," it said.
The resolution accused the Centre of being indifferent in protecting rights and interests of poor and the marginalised and diluting even the National Rehabilitation Policy based on the draft circulated by the Rural Development Ministry.
"The Central government is surprisingly reluctant even to honour its own draft in an overenthusiastic ugly attempt to serve the interests of big capitalists, both national and multinational," it said.
(With agency inputs)
Comments
0 comment