RIL to pay SEZ farmers for life

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries (RIL) is coming up with innovative ways of compensating farmers in SEZ areas. The company has now offered to pay farmers and land-owners in SEZ notified areas till perpetuity. This means compensation in regular installments for a lifetime.

The company is working on an arrangement with the farmer where it would pay him a certain part of the land price as a token. This done RIL will pay the farmer a monthly sum of money forever after.

In case of his death, his heir would continue to get the money. An RIL official has apprised the chairperson of the empowered group of ministers on SEZs, Pranab Mukherjee of the company’s plans.

For instance, in the Maha-Mumbai SEZ project, where land is being acquired at an average Rs 5 lakh per acre, RIL will pay Rs 5,000 per month to the farmer till perpetuity rather than paying the entire amount upfront. This amount will be significantly higher in case of Haryana SEZ, at about Rs 20,000 per month.

This will be done in addition to employing at least one member from the family in the project. The move will be part of RIL’s proposed resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) package for SEZs.

The move seems to be addressing the concern that, due to the lack of awareness, land-owners in rural areas often end up wasting all the bulk money that they get by selling their land.

To educate these farmers on sensible investment options, RIL had also tied up HDFC and ICICI Banks in Jhajjar, where the banks hired local pointspersons in the villages to stay updated with land deals and convince sellers to sensibly invest the money.

The exercise was based on the calculation that in the SEZ notified areas of Jhajjar, the average agricultural yield of 1 acre land is not more than Rs 20,000 per year.

In the Maha Mumbai SEZ area, the agricultural yield per acre is pegged to be about Rs 15,000 per year.On the other hand, the interest yielded by banks come to about Rs 16,000 per month.

This compensation package will further improve with RIL offering to pay Rs 20,000 every month. As part of the R&R package, RIL is also refraining from buying land in existing residential units.


“The idea is to ensure that villages and the SEZ co-exist. The company is only buying agricultural land. Also, the two projects are notified in areas which do not yield healthy agricultural returns. This means farmers will benefit much more when they actually sell the land.’’