Acquisition for Rajguru airport tied in red tape

The proposal was forwarded by Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC), the nodal agency for acquisition and development of the airport.

Making matters worse, the MADC, which took over from Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) eight months back, will now have to re-notify the land to be acquired for the project.

With the MIDC act not permitting transfer of the documents, the company is now urging the Government to ease the procedure, which will not only save additional expenditure of nearly Rs 600 crore, but also prevent a lot of unwanted opposition from local villagers. The present cost estimate of the entire project of the notified 2,565 hectares is Rs 5,000 crore with land acquisition process coming to Rs 1,100 crore.

With the Pune district collector having conducted two meetings in this regard, MADC is sure that the land acquisition, planning and designing processes would be completed in a year, if the government gives its green signal to the proposal.

To simplify the process, MADC is willing to accept the same consultants that the MIDC had appointed. “Our aim is to simplify the process. The construction will take place in 2010-11, and by 2012 the airport should be operational,” said Youl. But as of now, even the proposal is awaiting approval.

At a recent round of talks for land acquisition, the affected farmers demanded reconsideration of the proposal leaving out nearly 15 per cent irrigated land apart from a rehabilitation policy akin to the Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

Collector Dalvi had forwarded the demands to the technical committee and has been given an “in principle” acceptance. Talks will be on with people of seven villages — Chandoos, Shiroli, Waki Budruk, Koregaon Budruk, Kiwle, Pimpri Thakur and Wadgaon. The site is located three kilometres from Rajgurunagar and is set to have two airstrips.