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

110
Women’s Alienation
In Rajasthan, approved SEZs
are to be set up in Alwar,
Bhilwada, Ajmer, Kota and West
Rajasthan. The state government
is propagating these zones as its
success story by saying that they
will invite direct capital investment
and will lead to creation of
employment opportunities. But it
chooses to ignore the facts that
(a) there are many plots, land and
industrial units lying unproductive
in the already developed industrial
zones. In Alwar’s 11 industrial
zones alone, 500 acres were taken
away from farmers in the name
of industrial development but
the few units that were started
are now lying closed. Moreover
RIICO has a substantial amount
of land, which would have been
sufficient for setting up the SEZs.
(b) the government is unable to say
how many families were displaced
due to such large-scale acquisition
(c) it also does not have solid
figures about the employment
generated.
Thus it is clear that the government
does not have any clear picture
about the current development
status, yet is clamouring to set up
so many SEZs. On the other hand
it is also bent upon displacing
the poor farmers in the name
of colonisation. In almost every
big city in the state, the big
colonisers, colluding with the state
bureaucracy, are acquiring lakhs
of acres of land belonging to poor
farmers. In Alwar 1600 beeghas of
land of Diwakari, Ghegoli, Belaka
villages are to be acquired but
the whole process of acquisition
is believed to be unconstitutional.
Sparing the land of big farmers
and builders, the government is
acquiring the land where 90 per
cent of dalits live. For instance,
Lotus City and Veera Garden have
been granted permission to acquire
90 beeghas of land near Ambedkar
Town Plan. Similarly, Omway
City Housing Society has got the
permission near the proposed
Aravali Vihar Phase II. Obviously,
these housing projects will benefit
the big builders.
Rajasthan New Hotel Policy, 2006
During the last few years, there
has been great increase in the
number of tourists visiting the
state. However the infrastructural
facilities have not been matching
the tourist inflow. At present there
are 3,600 rooms available for the