Vast tracts of nearly 2,776 acres land were allotted for the Indian Farmers’ Fertilizer Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) for developing a world class multi-product special economic zone called Kisan SEZ at Racharlapadu, 25 kms north of Nellore, five years ago.
But not a single industry came up in this SEZ till now, even as the local leaders started raising concerns over lack of any industrial development here.
As the sizeable chunk of land is lying ‘idle’, the district administration has written to the government saying that the land could be taken back and fresh proposals be made to develop a national level educational institution like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) or an agriculture university.
District officials verified the status of the IFFCO SEZ recently following instructions from Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu who sought reports on vacant government lands which are suitable for establishing central institutes in Nellore district.
Later, District Collector N. Srikanth held a field level study with revenue officials and submitted a report to the Union Minister. In the report, the Collector said that the huge tracts of land allotted for the IFFCO SEZ are lying vacant.
On the issue of the Kisan SEZ officials claiming infrastructure development taking place, Mr. Srikanth said that a letter has been written to the SEZ management seeking their response as to why no factories came up and no jobs created in the SEZ till now. “We have not received any response. However we have indicated these lands as vacant in our report to the government,” he added.
Big plans were made for the Kisan SEZ to attract huge investments of thousands of crores so as to create nearly 10,000 jobs to benefit the people in the region. There were reports on setting up of dairies, fisheries units, paddy processing units, warehousing, cold storages and food processing units running into Rs. 3,000 crore. Several MoUs were signed with some international companies like Fonterra for setting up international level dairy project. These projects have not materialised so far, giving scope for the local leaders to come out with new demands for re-allotment of these lands.
