om e 's Ali a - Land ss De elo en - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office

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Women’s Alienation
most of these groups will leave out
the poor and landless. In fact a few
influential people of the village have
formed the groups and these people
already have substantial amount
of land with them. If they are also
allotted land under these rules then
most of the village land will come
under their possession. On top of it,
the companies can be allotted up to
5000 ha.of land. Thus most of the
village land will be in the possession
of companies and influential
people with the result that people
dependent on such land for their
livelihood will be deprived of their
land and will be pushed to a severe
economic crisis. There is no provision
of making it compulsory to allot the
land of a village to the local person
alone, thereby, leaving ground open
for influential people of any village
to get allotted the land of any other
village in their names.
It is now possible for a special
government committee to approve
up to 1000 ha. of land to be given
to private companies for Jatropha
plantations. Such relaxing of
controls makes land investment a
far more attractive proposal for large
companies like DMC International, a
real estate developer.
Further, the rules say that land in
tribal areas may be allotted to nontribal
members as well which is in
violation of such laws like Rajasthan
Tenancy Act 1955, and Rajasthan
Land Revenue Act 1956.
Special Economic Zones in
Rajasthan
India seems to be the only country
in the developing world which is
going overboard in serving the
interests of the corporate world
at the cost of the interests of the
farmers by creating hundreds of
SEZs. Rajasthan took an early lead
in acquiring farm land for SEZs by
invoking SEZ Act, 2005. According
to the Ministry of Commerce, Govt.
of India, three SEZs – two near
Jaipur and one in Jodhpur – have
become operational in Rajasthan. In
addition, five others have received
‘formal approval’ and 10 more
(including seven multi-product zones
above 1000 ha. each, of which five
are in Alwar district) await formal
approval, having already acquired
“in-principle approval”. According
to the changes announced by the
Government of India in April 2007,
the largest of these is the Omaxe
SEZ planned in Alwar district which
proposes to occupy as much as