New Delhi: After the Nandigram firing incident and roaring controversy over SEZ, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday asserted that the SEZ policy has to stay, even though the Government has been exposed to certain problems that could not be dismissed.
"These are decisions which are in many ways irreversible. If there were gaps in its design or in its implementation we should halt a little bit," PTI quoted Singh as saying at the India Today conclave.
He also said that the cost of delay was going to be much less then the cost that would arise if wrong policies were bulldozed regardless of human, social and economic concerns.
"I do believe that we should address these concerns if we want the policy to succeed in the long run," he added.
The policy on SEZ has come under a lot of flak from not just the opposition parties, but a number of economists, NGOs and farmer leaders as well.
The Government has been under intense pressure on the policy, especially after 14 people were killed and nearly 100 injured when police opened fire on villagers protesting acquisition of farmland at Nandigram in West Bengal for the proposed SEZ of Indonesia's Salim Group.
Making it clear that the SEZ policy has come to stay in the country, Singh said that the Government was formulating a humane and just policy on resettlement of land.
"SEZ as an instrument of economic policy has come to stay. But in the process of implementation, we have been exposed to certain problems, which cannot be dismissed. It is the strength of our democracy," he added.
(With agency inputs)
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