Calcutta, April 5: Commerce and industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen today said it would be difficult to provide jobs for a member of every displaced family — this would be a condition for SEZs, the Centre has announced — since holdings in Bengal were fragmented.

“Holdings in the state are very small and over 70 per cent holdings measure less than one acre. As observed in Singur, there are many co-owners for a single plot. Hence, the number of inheritors is also very large. How do we determine what ‘family’ means? Has the Centre defined this term?” he asked.

Sen also suggested Bengal might be unwilling to leave land acquisition solely to SEZ promoters, as Delhi has proposed. “The government would like to remain in the scene and act as a facilitator rather than allow the developers to do all the buying on their own,” he said. It would be happy to have the land on lease so that it could retain a measure of control.

However, the bigger challenge would be to build a consensus so that the land could be bought smoothly, Sen said.

In addition to the guidelines laid down by the Centre, the state government would also impose certain conditions on developers of large SEZs by entering into individual concession agreements with each of them.

“These would include creation of a development fund for developing the immediate vicinity of the SEZ. Also, the developers would have to build commercial stalls, small and medium enterprises industrial estate, run training centres free of cost and provide for irrigation facility in other areas.”