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Songs Of Dissent

Reliance gets a thumbs-down in a first-ever referendum on SEZs

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Songs Of Dissent
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Helping hand: Vadhav volunteers help farmers fill up forms

But will the referendum be accepted with the gravity it deserves? Vinayak will submit his detailed report—not merely the numerical result—to the state government shortly, but CM Deshmukh is not obliged to accept it. "The referendum is the people's voice but the decision will be that of the state government," remarked an official in the commerce ministry the following day, even as it cleared nine new SEZs for Maharashtra. Also, much depends on the discernment of the collector as he peruses forms that give conditional consent. "They have put certain stringent conditions. We are interested in seeing how Vinayak reads them," say Ulka Mahajan and Vaishali Patil of the anti-SEZ committee.

In Vadhav, Jitendra Mhatre represents this minority. "We are not totally against SEZ but no one's told us what's in it for us. Why should we give our land dirt-cheap for them to make a killing?" he asks. The 'conditional consent' faction demands a crore per acre against Reliance's offer of Rs 10 lakh per acre, a mandatory 12.5 per cent share of the developed land and, most importantly, a 99-year lease instead of outright sale. Even this is not acceptable to the majority. Reliance's appeal to the Bombay High Court to stay the referendum yielded no immediate results but the final decision will have to weigh in the court's decree.

The 'No' comes from the belief that water from the Hetavane dam will, finally, irrigate fields in this picturesque Konkan belt. Barely four per cent of the dam work is left; the canal work is near complete. "For years, we in the command area have waited for this water. Now that it's almost here, why sell our land?" asks V.S. Patil, sarpanch of Tambadshet. The dam, costing Rs 320 crore and some two decades in the works, was Raigad's bright hope. That Reliance will now reap its benefits underlines the protests here. Farmer after farmer points to the lush rice crop standing in the field and says: "This is a sign from our land that we should not part with it. The referendum is our signal to the government." The signal should be read correctly.

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