The Committee submitted the re port, titled `The Functioning of Special Economic Zones' to the Rajya Sabha chairman on June 20. The 31-member Committee met for eight times since December 2005 and visited several SEZ sites before adopting the report on June 8. HT had reported on the recommendations on June 12.

Joshi said, "food security of the country cannot be jeopardised; everything else can wait. Food production is stagnating since the 1970s. The Agriculture Ministry has said that cultivable land in the country is going down. In the national capital region (NCR), cultivable land has gone down by 8 per cent in the last five years. Per capita cultivable land has gone down by from .27 hectare to .18 hectare in the last 10 years.''

"The Committee feels that restriction on use of agricultural land for SEZ purposes should not be a matter of administrative advice or guideline. Rather, it should be clearly reflected in the SEZ Act and Rules made thereunder,'' the Committee noted.

Joshi added that land should be taken on lease from farmers so that their ownership is protected. Also, the system of "in-principle'' approvals should be discontinued. "Applications should be considered by the Board of Approval only after obtaining inputs of state governments, including those with regard to the type and quality of land,'' the Committee said.