Govt to scale down Dighi port project

In a meeting with Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) Thursday,Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said that in order to make the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor operational first in Maharashtra,phase one of the project will be undertaken at Shendra-Bidkin near Aurangabad at the earliest.

On the Dighi port project in Raigad district,MIDC chief executive officer Bhushan Gagrani said acquiring 25,000 hectares of land did not seem feasible. “We have decided to scale down the project and make it practically achievable. But it cannot be scaled down in pockets and we therefore need contiguous land. We will soon take a decision on how much we are cutting it down to,” said Gagrani.

Farmers and land owners led by Ulka Mahajan,convenor of Sarvahara Jan Andolan,an NGO working for the land rights of the locals,had put up a stiff resistance against the massive land acquisition.

In the first phase,over 6,000 hectares of land was to be acquired for the project by MIDC on behalf of Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Ltd (DMICDC).

Industries Minister Narayan Rane,who also attended Thursday’s meeting,admitted that the process of land acquisition was yet to take off in Dighi,but said he would pursue the matter with farmers by visiting and convincing them.

At Shendra,however,around 751 hectares of land has already been acquired. A total of 2,500 hectares are needed here for an industrial centre and an exhibition-cum-convention centre.

The DMIC project will link Mumbai,Thane,Raigad,Nasik,Aurangabad,Pune,Ahmednagar,Dhule and Nandurbar to Delhi from an industrial point of view. “A lot of places where there was no potential for industrial development earlier will become accessible. We want to bring this project on track,” said Chavan.

The DMIC project consists of various infrastructure projects for development of new industrial cities in the DMIC Region. The planned cities are Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad Investment Region in Uttar Pradesh,Manesar-Bawal Investment Region in Haryana,Khushkhera-Bhiwadi-Neemrana Investment Region in Rajasthan,Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow Investment Region in Madhya Pradesh,Ahmedabad-Dholera Investment Region in Gujarat,Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Park near Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Dighi Port Industrial Area in Maharashtra.

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