For One Huge SEZ Called Indyeah

Recently, the Times of India reported that the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) are stuck in the quagmire of land acquisition: the total land required is 92,000 acres.

Now, the first thing worth noting is that 92,000 acres is chickenshit for a huge country like India – a land mass measuring 3 million or 30 lakh square kilometers. So let us get the math right.

50 acres is 0.2 square kilometers.

100 acres (Amarnath row) is just 0.4 square kilometers.

500 acres is 2 square kilometers.

1000 acres in Singur is just 4 square kilometers.

So the total 92,000 acres of land required for all the SEZs is less than 400 square kilometers.

The total area of India's tiniest state, Goa, is 3701 square kilometers.

Goa is divided into north and south. The north is well populated and that is where the action is – for tourists. The coastal areas of the north are all hugely urbanized. There are 10 municipalities in north Goa.

South Goa is underpopulated and largely rural. There is only one municipality here – Canacona, where I have been living for the last 3 years.

South Goa measures 1900 square kilometers.

In this total area there are over 600 square kilometers of hills, dales and forest – all technically "unowned" land.

My point is this: All the SEZs could be easily fitted into south Goa itself.

There is no shortage of land in India.


The only problem is that The State is the default owner of all unowned land.

So, as Milton Friedman remarked, "If you give the Sahara Desert to the government there will be a shortage of sand in 5 years."

There is a shortage of land in India only because The State owns it all.

Of course, the SEZ policy is economic nonsense. With unilateral free trade, the entire sub-continent could be run like one gigantic SEZ.

I am glad that the chief economic advisor to the government of India, Subhashis Gangopadhyay, has recently rubbished the idea behind SEZs. He has said that "this policy will lead to corruption and landgrabbing."

SEZs are just another form of cronyism. Note that this policy is the brainchild of the ministry of commerce, headed by none other than that wrecker of international trade, Kamal Nutt.

Away with cronyism.

Away with State ownership of all unowned land.

And let the entire sub-continent become the world's largest duty-free trading area: a huge SEZ.