New collector will take Chakan airport talks forward
The new district collector is keen on taking forward talks on the proposed Chakan airport project stalled over land acquisition issues for long
3 min read
The new district collector is keen on taking forward talks on the proposed Chakan airport project stalled over land acquisition issues for long and says there have been no direction to the district administration over any change of land status .
District Collector Vikas Deshmukh,interacting with Newsline on Tuesday,said,As of now,the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) is supposed to acquire the land though there are protests from locals. We have no instructions on the change of site as of now.
Deshmukh said he was not aware of any alternative sites either. As of now,the Chakan-Rajgurunagar site remains.
When contacted,MADC officials,too,said they had no initimation of any new development. With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) clearly mentioning that no loan be given towards acquisition when a proposal is mooted,the money proposed two years back as seed capital will not hold water in the present scenario, said a senior MADC official. Now,for the acquisition process to begin,the government needs to give a good amount as seed capital.
MADC had earlier mentioned that no work had been initiated for land acquisition in the villages. There was a report by MADC officials about land in the area not being feasible for the project but no action had not been taken after than and no further meetings were held.
The government had sanctioned a seed money of Rs 200 crore of which Rs 75 crore was cleared to appoint a consultant for the project on 3,300 hectares covering seven villages,Chandoos,Shiroli,Waki-Budruk,Koregaon-Budruk,Kiwale,Pimpri Thakur and Wadgaon.
The project estimate is Rs 7,500 crore. Earlier,land acquisition process undertaken by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) through which 2,565 hectares were notified and based on that the then district collector held meetings with farmers two years back. The project had been transferred from MIDC to MADC in May 2008.
It had been earlier announced that the airport would take off by 2011. The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce,Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) has been vigorously pursing the state government to develop a new international airport for Pune. The state government had even identified land in Chakan area for the project and allotted seed money during the last financial year to start land acquisition. The MCCIA had even announced that it would rope in private players for construction of the airport if the state government did not start it.
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