Chakan airport may not take off

The MADC administration has put on record its worries by writing to the Board of Directors of the company,headed by the Chief Minister. A Board meeting will be held on January 21 to take stock of the situation. The land acquisition for the Chakan airport has been on for the past three years.

“There is stiff opposition from the villagers in Chakan as the land under acquisition is irrigated. The land there is not levelled and hence may not be ideal for an airport. Even though the government wants the airport at Chakan,there has been not much progress with land acquisition. It is better that we consider some alternative site,” a senior MADC officer told The Indian Express.

Regarding the minister’s remarks about private participation in the project,the MADC said international players are welcome but the first roadblock is the acquisition of land. “We are not going ahead here and we do not see any progress on the land front,” he said. He said there are a couple of international infrastructure companies keen to participate in the Pune airport project.

Recently at a meeting,the villagers had threatened to end their life if the airport was constructed on their land. “The land is undulating and almost 85-90 per cent of land is irrigated. The farmers do not want to part with their land and so we cannot go ahead with the project,” said another MADC officer who conducted meetings with the farmers. Nearly 3,330 hectares have to be acquired for the project from seven villages in the district. “Almost 1,200 farmers would stand to lose irrigated land,” he said.

When pointed out that the farmers were opposing the project from the time when Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) was handling the project,the officer from MADC said they did not realise that there would be such stiff opposition.

MP Shivaji Adhalrao Patil who has been campaigning for the farmers said the farmers would not allow the government to construct the airport on this land. “We have already submitted several appeals to the government to cancel the project here. They can implement such a project on barren land,” he said.

Kedar Shinde,a villager,said they would not allow any officer to come to their village for the airport project.