Posted online: Saturday , January 26, 2008 at 2244 hrs IST

Panaji, Jan 26 The BJP on Saturday accused the Digamber Kamat-led Goa
government of lacking in 'political will' to denotify three special
economic zones (SEZs) in Goa.

"There is no political will on the part of Congress-led state
government to denotify three SEZs, and this will be proved over a
period of time," leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar said.

Talking at the sidelines of Republic Day parade here, Parrikar said
that the BJP is ready to cooperate with the Congress at the Centre to
denotify these three SEZs.

"The Communist party is also willing to cooperate. Only Congress needs
a political will to step ahead and get them denotified," the former
chief minister said.

On the New Year eve, Goa chief minister Kamat had declared willingness
to scrap 12 out of 15 SEZs. The government had later written to the
Centre seeking to denotify three SEZs, which were approved by the
board of approval.

However, the denotification issue had kicked off a controversy with
the board of approval expressing some reservations. Later, the Goa
chief minister met the commerce minister Kamal Nath seeking his
intervention on the issue.

"Why is government shying away from making the white paper on SEZs
public? Why is the chief minister not making public the letter he
wrote to the Centre seeking to denotify three SEZs," Parrikar
questioned, alleging that the stategovernment is handling the entire
process half-heartedly.

The leader of Opposition also alleged that the government did not
allow discussions on SEZs on the floor of the House during recent
state Legislative Assembly Session.

"I had moved 74 amendments to the governor's speech, of which 36 were
disapproved. These amendments comprised three on SEZs, three on health
and also on International Film Festival of India (IFFI)," Parrikar
said.

He said if the chief minister acted in time then he would have had to
face the burden of denotifying only one SEZ.

"Two SEZs were notified during Kamat's tenure on July 17 and November
six last year," he said pointing out that the chief minister took the
decision to scrap the SEZs after six months.

The SEZ controversy had rocked the state last year with anti-SEZ
groups launching massive agitations. Besides NGOs, various political
parties and even the Catholic Church had raised their banner against
these industrial enclaves.

—PTI