Kolkata Resistance On

Palash Biswas

( Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-33-25659551)

On Wednesday, Kolkata's intelligentsia came out on to the streets to air their protest against the violence in these two places where there are plans to turn farmlands over for factories. Not just artists, filmmakers, educationists, theatre personalities, musicians, litterateurs - all came together to express solidarity with the farmers.

Kolkata is resisting despite its sponataneous support for left.The Preamble to the Constitution of India describes India as a Socialist, Secular Democratic Republic. The left was defending the concept from the beginning and now it is trying its best to wipe out all such obstacles from the path to capitalist development.The BJP led NDA government topped its policies with the India Shining campaign at a time when farmers were committing suicide and the divide between the rich and poor had increased. The campaign was an insult to citizens of India and the elections unexpectedly threw the BJP led NDA government. Left protest had been always vocal and loud altogether. But the UPA government led by Congress came to power with claims of compassion to the poor. The CPI-M, an active member of the current government claimed to be the voice of the poor. However, industrial policies in Bengal and processes of industrialization have shown that the CPI-M has not taken the people’s concerns into account as it has aggressively tried to industrialize. Singur is a case in point. The UPA government has also passed the SEZ 2005 Act. As per this act, private entrepreneurs and State governments can set up Special Economic Zones for manufacturing and for industries that will provide services for export. These industries will have significant economic benefits in form of exemption from any duty of Customs, exemption from any duty of excise, exemption from any service tax, exemption from securities transaction tax, and exemption from taxes on sales and purchases. The government says that the SEZs will help bring direct investment into the country and help with employment. According to the government’s own website, 8 functional SEZs provide employment to little over one lakh people with an investment of Rs. 18.3 Billion. (The government has sanctioned a total of 181 SEZs.) While these numbers seem impressive, we need to examine them critically.Rs 18.3 Billion investment is not for any public good – it is being invested into an insulated community and the profits are being taken out by investors. There is little for the local community or the common people in the country.

Bengal moots fund to sweeten SEZs. Telegraph Kolkata story reveals in its story datelined
Calcutta/New Delhi, Jan. 24: The Bengal government has asked the Centre to incorporate in the special economic zone policy a fund to develop adjoining areas.The state government feels that such a fund should be used to build infrastructure facilities in backward areas so that investors would be encouraged to set up shop in SEZs there. Such an initiative will also help the SEZ to address concerns of the local population.The proposal reflects the government’s eagerness to shift focus from areas close to urban clusters, where uninhabited land is scarce and resentment to acquisition is high.The “development fund” is among several proposals the state government has sent to the Centre to sensitise the SEZ policy to the ground situation.

Bengal’s proposals complement a charter of demands — more or less modelled on the Bengal plan — placed by the CPM before a parliamentary panel today. (See chart)

Bengal commerce and industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen has written to commerce secretary G.K. Pillai.

The state has recommended that the developer be asked to deposit with the SEZ development commissioner a certain percentage of tax concessions allowed by the Centre. The fund will be used under the commissioner’s supervision.

Sen has also submitted that there should be a differentiation between SEZs in developed and backward areas. Additional concessions should be given to SEZs in backward districts in the form of a relaxation in the manufacturing area ceiling and scope for more commercial activity.

"Our democratic right is being abused, ignored and as a normal human being I have come to this platform to express my grievance, said Shaoli Mitra, dramatist. Mahashweta devi, Medha Patkar, Arundhati roy, aruna Roy- the list of people`s enemy against the SEZ drive and indiscriminate land aquisitions gets lengthy day by day. Medha has challanged the CPIM claim that she is an outsider. She is writing on Bangla statesman addressing Left Front chairman Bimanda for last two days. She asserts that as an Indian citizen she is quite aware of her rights and duties. She remembers all the support of the left in different mass movement in other parts of the Nation and exposes well the left doublespeak on SEZ. Aruna roy suggested to stop Tatas work in Singur and initiate a dialogue. Mahashweta di is away in Kota, Rajsthan where she is with the farmers resisting on Singur and Nandigram line. Earlier in her regular column Mahashweta reminded Buddhdev of the role played by Jamayate Islami during struggle for freedom. She reminded that Jamayate Ulema Hind opposed partition. If Jamayate is so communal why the left banked on its support in nandigram and elswhere in Bengal. Jamayate also organised a meeting in Medinipur, attended by muslim peasants at large. Meanwhile, shaoli Mitra, Bibhas chakrabarti, Sunando Sanyal, Aparna Sen, Kabir suman are not sitting idle.City-based intellectuals, litterateur, doctors, advocates and artists staged a demonstration today at Metro channel near Esplanade, protesting against the “forcible land acquisition” in Singur and the killings of peasants and destruction of property at Nandigram.

On the other hand, stung by Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata's accusation that competitors were fuelling a controversy over its small-car project at Singur in West Bengal, Maruti on Wednesday dared the Tata Group to name the competitor."I don't know which competitor he is talking about. Since he knows, he should name the competitor," Maruti Udyog Managing Director and CEO Jagdish Khattar said. Asked about Tata's comments last month to a private television channel that he suspected that competitors had a hand in the controversy, Mr. Khattar said, "We don't do these things. We believe in healthy competition." This is not the first time that the two major car makers are involved in public sparring over the small car, also known as the Rs.1 lakh car scheduled for roll-out in 2008. Last year, Osamu Suzuki, chief executive of Suzuki Motor Corporation had ridiculed the Tata project, saying it was not feasible and could only be a cheap product.

Despite the raging controversy over land acquisition at Singur, Mr. Tata had maintained that the group would not abandon West Bengal for its ambitious small-car project. There has been speculation in the market that the arrival of the "people's car" would affect Maruti's erstwhile flagship model M800 - currently India's cheapest car at nearly Rs. 2,00,000. Mr. Khattar, however, refuted that such a thing was likely to happen. "In the event of the Rs.1 lakh car coming, it will only help M800 as it would narrow the gap with the two-wheelers," he said.

Noted cultural groups and renowned artists joined in the protests by singing songs, drawing pictures, reciting poems and voicing their opinions on the incidents at Singur and Nandigram. Among those present were actors Aparna Sen and Bibhas Chakraborty, singers Kabir Suman and Shaonli Mitra and other intellectuals like Sunanda Sanyal, Sujoy Basu, Jaya Mitra, Gourishankar Ghatak, Ramaprasad Dey and Prabir Gupta. The sit-in demonstrations started at 12 noon and continued till 7 pm. After the protest rally of intellectuals on January 12, this was the second step taken by them. Following this will be a convention whereby the artists and intellectuals want to create a strong public opinion against the state government’s actions in the two places.

After the routine political protest that the issue has evoked, theirs was a protest with a difference. They didn't stop traffic instead used their art to express their anger.

"I do believe in industrialization. I do believe what the state to go in for industrialization is a good one. I only have a problem with the way it is being done.

"I want to know why - whenever whatever small percentage of fallow land is still available - why are we going for prime agricultural land?" said Aparna Sen, Filmmaker.

The city's intelligentsia took the center stage on Wednesday. Voicing their protest on a different canvas - through poetry, drama and art - the artists are appealing to the government to do a rethink on Nandigram and Singur.

Earlier, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was on a hunger strike for 25 days to protest the government's acquisition of farmland in Singur.

“We will not sit quiet. The state government, under the garb of industrialisation is just snatching away land of the poor farmers and giving them to capitalists. The poor farmers are getting robbed,” said Tapan Roychoudhuri, the person who organised the demonstration.

“Painters painted on canvases, singers sang songs of protest, elocutionists recited verses to protest against the state government’s stand. They just drew daggers at the way the police is harassing the locals. Now hooligans belonging to certain political parties are creating ruckus in those areas,” said Roychoudhuri.

“No one can sit mumb if there is something unjust going on in the state. The state government, through all these actions, is trying to create a state withing a state, that is, they are trying to alienate people. This is wrong and hence we are raising voice so that it stops,” Roychoudhuri said.

The CPI(M) today rejected Mamata Banerjee’s demand that she should be consulted while taking decisions regarding the acquisition of land at Singur for the Tata Motors’ small car project. Binoy Konar, central committee member of the CPI(M), said : “It is not possible for the government to discuss everything with her.” He was speaking to the media at the state headquarters of the party.

It is important to mention in this context that the CPI(M) is not only under the Opposition’s scanner, but Left Front partners too are demanding comprehensive information about the Tata Motors’ project. The RSP, FB and the CPI have asked the government to come out in open with the details for the land acquisition plan. “The government is not transparent,” Left partners had earlier said.

In accordance of a story published in Times of india, Kolkata on 25 th Jan., 2007,Investment figures for West Bengal have never looked this good in past. In the first two quarters of 2006-07 — between April and September — the state has had an investment of Rs 6,000 crore already, raising expectations that it could reach a whopping Rs 12,000 crore this financial year. And that's unprecedented, say officials of the state commerce and industries department, considering that the investment in West Bengal has been on an average of Rs 2,000 crore per year for the last 15 years (considering that the total investment in state from 1990-91 to 2004-05 has been Rs 28,500 crore).

"The reason behind this however, might not be a huge increase in industrial investment after all," say officials. Rather, it all changed when Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's government took a policy decision to modify the system of calculating investment for the state.

Earlier, investment figures for the state would only include investment in manufacturing industry. "But this was not giving the actual amount of investment, because the state gets a huge amount of investment in infrastructure," said an official. This is when the government took a decision and asked Webcon to compile the investment figures.

West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Wednesday urged all frontal organisations of the CPM to counter the Opposition’s move to thwart his government’s plans to industrialise the state. Mr Bhattacharjee, who addressed state committee members of the party, also warned that rightist political parties, ultra-Left forces and different other organisations with vested interests were very active in West Bengal and trying to create law and order problems to undermine the state’s industrialisation drive. “In some places, these forces are trying to exploit religious groups to confuse poor people over the government’s drive to set up new factories and carry out other development work,” Mr Bhattacharjee told the party leaders. The farmers’ wing of the party, Paschimbanga Pradeshik Kishan Sabha, has responded to the chief minister’s appeal to counter the opposition campaign and announced it will hold a massive rally at the Brigade Parade Ground on March 11.

The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), youth wing of the party, had already organised a rally at the Brigade Parade Ground on January 7 in favour of Mr Bhattacharjee’s industrialisation drive. The CPM has launched a campaign on January 15 to remove misconception among people about the government’s industrialisation drive.

In East Midnapore the campaign will continue till March 15. Mr Bhattacharjee will also visit Nandigram, where several persons were killed in clashes between supporters and opponents of land acquisition. CPIM insiders said the chief minister will kick-off the party’s campaign for the 2008 panchayat polls at the Brigade rally on March 11 which will be organised by the farmers’ wing.

The CPIM has realised that the issue of land acquisition for industrialisation and urbanisation will be the focal point of its opposition during the 2008 panchayat polls. The party has therefore deployed its peasants’ wing which has a strong base in rural Bengal and among the farmers, to counter the opposition parties on this score.

Apart from land issue, the CPIM state leadership on Wednesday decided to highlight the failures of the Congress-led UPA government in Delhi. The CPIM has identified five sectors where the Centre has failed to work effectively in favour of the common people.

The party will run a campaign in West Bengal from February 1 to 8. The party will ask the Centre to initiate measures to reduce the price of essential commodities, strengthen the public distribution system, and include more villages in the rural employment guarantee scheme. The West Bengal State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) reiterated here on Wednesday the need to counter attempts being made by "rightist reactionary forces" along with those belonging to "the ultra-left" and various other groupings driven by "self-interest" to disrupt moves being initiated in the State towards industrial development.
communal

These forces were, at places, also trying to play on religious sentiments as well to confuse the poor in their design to thwart the development process undertaken by the State Government, the party's leadership observed at the 18th conference of the State committee.

Conspiracy

To defeat this "conspiracy," the State committee called on party workers to continue an extensive and sustained campaign on issues outlined in the election manifesto of the Left Front (that had been adopted prior to the April-May, 2006 Assembly polls), a statement by the committee said.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee outlined the development programme adopted by his Government at the conference.

Campaign

A State-wide campaign to explain to the people the State Government's drive towards industrialisation, which had been launched on January 15, would continue till February 28. It also aimed at countering the "misinformation" being spread by certain Opposition parties on the State's industrialisation programme, particularly over acquisition of land for setting up new industry and infrastructure.

This campaign would continue in Purbo Medinipur district till March 15, in view of the recent disturbances at Nandigram, where a Special Economic Zone is proposed to be set up. "Nandigram Diwas" would be observed on January 27, where funds would be raised for those affected by the violence.

The party's peasant organisation had also undertaken a sustained pro-industry campaign and a rally would be taken out in the city on March 11 in support of the industrialisation move, it added.

A report, detailing the decisions taken by the party's central committee at its three-day meeting held here earlier this month, was also referred to by Biman Bose, Secretary of the party's State Committee at the conference.

The Central Committee's decision to launch an eight-day nationwide campaign from February 1 to highlight the demand for fulfilment of the United Progressive Alliance Government's commitment to the Common Minimum Programme in areas, where it had so far failed to do so, was also taken up at the conference.

Bengal package for Tata Motors unit soon

The incentive package being offered by the government of West Bengal for the Tata Motors for setting up the small car project in Singur would take into account the concessions offered by the Uttaranchal government for the project in that state and reflected in the cost of the project, including cost of land. The largest offered by the Uttaranchal government for the project included the excise and income tax holidays.

However, it would not have been possible for the state government to offer sops to match those offered by hill states under a Central government package.WBIDC, the state's nodal industrial promotion agency, did not have resources to fund the incentives. Under the present incentive scheme of the state government a part of the fixed capital investment is subsidised.

Therefore, the incentives for the project would include the extra cost required by Tata Motors to set up the project in the state, Sabyasachi Sen, principal secretaryof the Bengal commerce and industry department, said.

"Tata Motors is also a listed company and it has to report to shareholders. The state has to consider the shortfall as a result of the offer in Uttaranchal for the project," Sen said. He claimed this was not the first time such incentives were being doled out to get a project.

Such incentives were also offered to Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd, South Asian Petrochem and other projects. Sen said the legal team of Tata Motors was working on the agreement, which would be signed shortly. The Tata Motors factory was essential for developing the automotive industry in the state and the state's efforts were in view of this potential.

Without disclosing the amount of incentive, Sen said the entire agreement with Tata Motors would be made public as soon as it is signed.

Nitin Desai writes in his article Of `SEZ, land rights and development’

`The reconciliation of land rights and development is now becoming a hot political issue. The unrest that we have seen recently in West Bengal in Nandigram against the land acquisition for an SEZ and in Singur against the acquisition for the Tata Motors project are an indication of what we can expect for the ambitious programme of SEZ and mega-project developments that are being planned.

The finance minister has responded by asking industrialists to avoid acquiring cultivable lands. Cultivable and uncultivable lands exist side by side wherever there is a settled population.

The only large stretches of uncultivable land that would be available would be in reserved forests, which, in any case, are out of bounds, or in remote desert and mountain areas quite unsuitable for SEZs, urban expansion or mega projects. Hence the finance minister's injunction is a non-starter.

Even so-called wastelands in settled areas are used by local people for firewood or grazing or fodder. Other non-cultivable lands have important ecological support functions particularly for water management.

The central issue that has to be addressed is not the encroachment on land for agriculture but displacement of people. The numbers displaced by development projects in post-independence India are not known because the government has nor released any reliable figures on this. Informed estimates put the number at 40-50 million.

Almost all of these people are involuntary displacees. That is because we have relied for far too long on the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, which allows the government to exercise the right of eminent domain for compulsorily acquiring private lands for a public purpose.

There are problems with the process and the rules about compensation under the Act. These difficulties can be fixed. The real problem, however, is the purposes for which the Act has been used. The Act is silent on what constitutes public purpose and has been used to acquire land for commercial projects on the argument that there would be some collateral generation of public benefit like food security or employment or self-reliance.

We need a clearer definition of public purpose if the Act continues to be used for commercial or private projects. The Act has been misused and this has to stop.

We do not accept this order of compulsion for other factors of production. In the case of labour, we only accept the legitimacy of conscription in a narrowly defined class of emergency situations like a war threat or a natural disaster.

Beyond these few cases we would not use the excuse of public purpose to justify press-ganging people to work on terms determined by some public authority. And surely we would reject it altogether for any commercial venture. Then why do we continue to accept it for land?

There are many in the industry who accept that the use of the state's right of eminent domain will not work. They recognise that in today's India this is a recipe for court battles and agitations. This was the sentiment expressed in the recent FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) meeting. Hence they argue for a direct deal between the individual landowners and the corporate buyer and this is what is happening with many of the SEZs.

This argument for the use of market forces may sound appealing to many. But the land acquisition transaction between a large corporation, on the one hand, and a host of mostly small landholders, on the other, is an unequal negotiation. To rely on market forces alone is not enough.

Large-scale land acquisition for development will involve acquiring settled lands with long-established rights. It will disrupt the life of some functioning community and of all who live in it, not just the landowners. In fact the ones worst affected will be the share-croppers and labourers, the petty traders and service providers. These landless ones do not even have a juridical basis for compensation if the transaction is seen simply as a sale of land, voluntary or compulsory.’

Activists destroy crops, assault farmers working for Tatas: BS report

With the project work on in full swing and agitations proving ineffective, the Naxalite faction of the ‘Save Singur Farmland Committee’ has resorted to threats and violence against the the locals who have voluntarily sold land for the project or are getting involved in construction of the fencing.

Jayanta Majhi of Gopalnagar Mauja in Singur was among the first to face the wrath of the TMC-led committee members. Majhi did not have to sell his paltry 0.4 acres of land for the project since it was outside the demarcated area. Yet, the activists destroyed his potato crop on Monday because he joined the labour team engaged in fencing the project land for some extra income.

“First they warned me not to join the construction team. When I did not listen to them, they destroyed my potato crop by pouring excessive water,” Majhi said. Police said the activists even tried to set the fencing on fire, but were chased away by the police.

The crop destruction has made Majhi more adamant. “They have spoilt my harvest. They can torture me in future, but I will continue with the construction work,” he said.

Bifal Bangal, of Babur Bheri Hattala village in Singur, is also facing threats from the committee activists after he sold off his one acre of land for the project.

Bifal, who also runs a local grocery shop, is being regularly threatened by activists. Another farmer Santan Patra, also engaged in the construction work, says he was physically assaulted. All this started after the state’s industry director MV Rao, after consultation with Tata Motors’ officials on Monday, announced that around 2,500 local people would be involved with the construction process at different stages.

A senior district police official told DNA that the police are receiving 12 complaints daily. “It is not possible to give protection to every one. But we are alert and extra police force has been deployed,” he said.

Singur women torch Tata car project fencing

West Bengal's Singur area remained on the boil on Thursday with a group of women torching a part of the fencing for the controversial Tata Motors small car project.The incident took place early morning when women from displaced farmers' families set on fire the poles erected to demarcate the site for the project, said Singur Krishijami Raksha Committee (Save Singur Farmland Committee) leader Becharam Manna.

"Such incidents will continue. The farmers are still as militant," Manna said.

By the time police arrived from nearby camps, the women had disappeared. In a cat and mouse game, they reappeared after police left the scene and set on fire more poles. The farmers and their womenfolk torched at least 15 poles. The cops later put out the fire and deployed more personnel in the area. No one was arrested.

Work on the controversial project in Singur, 40 km from here in Hooghly district, formally began on Sunday with a religious ritual, capping weeks of tension in the area with farmers, rights activists and political parties ranged against the government over the issue of land acquisition.

On Sunday too, some protestors had set ablaze the fencing.

Last week on January 16, a group of Trinamool Congress activists stormed into the land fenced off for the plant and uprooted poles and barbed wire.

On Monday, the protests moved to the heart of the capital Kolkata when women activists and Trinamool Congress workers smeared tar on the gate of the Tata Centre building.

Subhas for Prasun, for 7 months

Subhas Chakraborty did a somersault today, “trying to ensure” city police chief Prasun Mukherjee could become the Cricket Association of Bengal president without a contest.

The sports minister, who had been insisting that he would fight for CAB president until two days ago, was today calling up people in the sports fraternity, asking them to ensure a walkover for Mukherjee.

Attributing his pullout to “a dramatic change in circumstances”, Chakraborty said: “I’ve been talking to all those who were instrumental in fielding me for the post. I’ve told them that there shouldn’t be another candidate opposite Prasun.”

“After going through the forms, we found no one other than Mr Mukherjee had filed nomination for the post and so he will be the unanimous choice,” CAB joint secretary Saradindu Pal said in the evening.

The police chief was happy at the unexpected show of support. “I’m happy that sports minister Subhas Chakraborty supported me, though he had earlier wished to contest. As a sports minister, he is an important person and I will definitely seek his cooperation,” Mukherjee said.

“BCCI president Mr Sharad Pawar called me up and assured all help,” he added.

The minister, who had vowed not to allow the police “to rule the Maidan”, had been told the by the CPM not to eye the cricket post.

Today, he hinted that a compromise had been reached at yesterday’s meeting with chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and state party secretary Biman Bose, where he was promised that the government would not meddle in the next CAB poll, seven months later.

“I don’t know what will happen in seven months, but one thing is clear — the government will not get involved in any sports body election, be it cricket or football or swimming,” Chakraborty said.

Asked if he was forced to pull out, the minister said he had to go by the party’s deci- sion. He also “couldn’t ignore the chief minister’s request” and Jyoti Basu’s “advice”.

Chakraborty said the only occasion he had violated party discipline was when he criticised the Election Commission’s high-handedness before last year’s Assembly polls.

After the cabinet meeting this morning, the sports minister had a chat with the CPI’s Nandagopal Bhattacharya and the RSP’ Kshiti Goswami, who had backed his bid.

Bhattacharya, who had said Chakraborty “should” contest the poll and that he was a far better candidate than Mukherjee, declined comment on his colleague’s volte-face.

“I don’t want to be involved in this anymore,” he said.

The "Special Economic Zone" Debacle of the Left Front in West Bengal
by Analytical Monthly Review
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its January 2007 issue features the following editorial. -- Ed.

In an article entitled "Capital, Technology and Development,"1 Harry Magdoff, refuting the myth of bourgeois social science that capital and technology are the magic which will bring the entire world into the Garden of Eden, wrote:

Since the obstacles to successful capitalist development (in third world countries) are today so gigantic, the pursuit of industrialization inevitably involves the accumulation of capital at the expense of keeping the masses down. Agriculture remains backward, investment is insufficient to cure unemployment in urban and rural areas, and wages are kept at pitifully low levels to provide adequate incentives for entrepreneurs. Production decisions are, and must be, made to satisfy the desires of the middle-and upper-income sectors of the population, those that have the money to buy. The technology introduced is the kind most favored by, and closely tied in with, foreign capital, since this is the technology best suited for profit-making and for squeezing into some of the interstices of foreign trade. Brazil is an outstanding example of what I am referring to. Brazil has been successful in taking a significant step forward in industrialization -- one in which native capitalists have actively participated, along with foreign investors from a number of advanced capitalist states. With what consequences? The real wages of the working class have declined and the backward agricultural regions have remained stagnant and poverty-stricken."

Today, thirty years later, every word rings true for India.

The global counter-revolution of these last thirty years has only added a more vicious aspect. It is only in these last few decades that global trade and capital flows -- as a share of world production and savings, respectively -- have again risen to the scale of the prior imperialist golden age that preceded the First World War. But this increased transnational dominance of the capitalist market ("globalization") does not mean that national states -- even those not of the imperial center -- are becoming obsolete. Rather, ruthless state actions associated with neo-liberalism, policies designed to enhance "competitiveness" and "flexibility," not just for individual firms but for whole national economies, are required.

In India, the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy of the government, formulated in 2000, and brought fully into force in the SEZ act in February 2006, is a clear example of the brutal mobilization of the state for neo-liberal ends. Supposedly based on a Chinese model, in fact the SEZ act goes far further -- a complete capitulation to imperial capital. It is sufficient to point out that the supposed Chinese "model" does not permit the sale of land to the corporate SEZ promoters and developers. Until September 2006, the Board of Approvals committee of the Ministry of Commerce had approved 267 SEZ projects all over India. Land area for each of these projects "deemed foreign territories" ranges from 1,000 to 14,000 hectares. Developers of large, multi-product zones with a minimum area of 1,000 hectares are required to utilize only 25 per cent of the SEZ for industrial purpose. The rest can be utilized for residential and shopping purposes, hotels, malls, and the other trappings of "development." Moreover, the developers have a completely free hand to allocate space and other facilities within the