Another Mulayam Singh Yadav friend found himself on Mayawati’s chopping board on Thursday when the state cabinet decided to pull the plug on the Reliance Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Noida by recommending to the Centre the scrapping of the deal with the Anil Ambani-led Reliance group for breach of rules.
The decision came following a discussion about the lapses in allotting 1,200 acres of land to the Anil Ambani group. The proposal by the group was found not to be in keeping with stipulations that require the land should be contiguous. There exists a road in the middle of the land. Though the Centre is yet to take a decision on the SEZ approved by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav government, the state government has decided to go ahead with its recommendation to scrap it.

Farmers’ land
In another major move, the UP government has decided that henceforth the government will not acquire land for any project and investors will have to deal with the landowners or farmers to purchase land. The decision was taken in the wake of the farmers’ agitation over the Dadri power project of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance group for which land was allotted during the previous regime. Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh said this was necessary to avoid “Singur-like situations”.
The cabinet has also decided to set up a panel headed by the Industrial Development Commissioner to re-evaluate each proposal of Mulayam government relating to SEZ and High-Tech City projects.
Reliance Industries’ multi-product SEZ project was to be developed on 2,500 acres of land in Noida. Since all projects to be developed on more than 1,000 acres of land, required government approval, this project too was cleared in a meeting of the UP state cabinet.
Reliance was among 14 other investors whose proposals for SEZs were sent to the Centre by the then Mulayam government in January, but following protests in different parts of the country over land acquisition, the Centre has not approved any new SEZs so far.