Maha Mumbai SEZ in limbo as farmers oppose land acquisition

The Jai Corp-promoted Maha Mumbai Special Economic Zone (SEZ), which is backed by Anand Jain, sought to acquire 11,000 hectares of land across 24 villages and sought to invest about Rs 40,000 crore but three years after the initial steps were taken, not much progress has happened. It may be recalled that towards the final days, the SEZ tried to acquire land under the Land Acquisition Act, which was promulgated by the Maharashtra government about two years back in 2007. CNBC-TV18's Kenan Machado finds out why the delay.

Here is a verbatim transcript of Kenan Machado's comments. Also watch the accompanying video.

The Act - a British era act - states land should acquire for the larger public goods and for state use. In this case, the farmers weren't compensated at market value but there was a relief package, which was supposed to be given to them that the farmers opposed too. Today, when we went there, today is the last day for that act after which it will lapse and both Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court have not agreed to put a stay on that act.

The options now before the SEZ promoters is to directly negotiate with the farmers to acquire their land at market or whatever fair value farmers may think. We also did a unanimous status check across two-three villages and spoke to a cross section of farmers: they said that irrespective of the money they would not want to sell the land. They say they want to go in for a long-term sustainable future rather than just take a short-term cash package and then have nothing else to do for their livelihood.

Here's the math: the farmers roughly make an income of about Rs 22,400 a year for about 10 quintals of rice that they sell.