Villagers glad as project put on hold

Navi Mumbai: Affected villagers as well as environmentalists who have been consistently opposing the ambitious Navi Mumbai airport project were celebrating on Thursday.
The Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) MLA from Panvel, Vivek Patil, one of those firmly against Cidco's land acquisition for the project, said: "We are glad the Union environment ministry has asked for vital changes in plans. Not only will mangroves be affected, we do not want villagers to suffer because of land acquisition. Pollution from this airport will also be very high.''
While Patil hopes this is the final directive from the Centre to the state on the airport project, villagers are still a bit wary as they feel the "on-and-off'' game has been going on for some time now. People from affected villages such as Chinchpada, Koli, Kopar, Vagheliwada, Vaghivali, Ganesh Puri, Kambad Bhuje, Targhar, Ulwe and Mulgaon were happy that the airport plans were on hold for now. But they fear things may again change in future.
The president of the `Gram Bachao Kruti Samiti of Chinchpada village, Jaywant Namdev Pardesi, said: "Cidco has been trying to take away our ancestral land without our consent. We learnt that people from all of Navi's Mumbai's 95 villages are being trained for employment at the airport. We have no idea where people from the 10 affected villages stand."
19/06/09 Vijay Singh & Joshua A P/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jun 2009, New Jun 2009