Pune airport plan gets new impetus in PM meet

“The meeting discussed land acquisition of Pune airport,’’ said Pune Divisional Commissioner Prabhakar Deshmukh. Though he was not present in the meeting,he said that state officials attended the meeting and discussed various projects in the state.

MADC officials said in the meeting the Prime Minister asked the state officials to speed up the pending proposals. “We have been told that land acquisition process has to be worked out,’’ said the MADC official.

For the Pune airport,the land on the eastern side of Khed SEZ is being considered. MADC and AAI was to give a survey report and then they would ask the district officials to take necessary steps.

State officials maintain that the push for these projects coming directly from the Prime Minister,seems to be the strategy of the the UPA government who are keen to finish all the pending projects ahead of the elections. Interestingly,the project which was considered to be the pet project of NCP,now seemed to be taken up by the Congress.

“With the CM from Congress chairing the MADC,the NCP had taken a step back and suddenly when there was opposition,the NCP came ahead and tried to push the project ahead. However,the project once again seems to be back in the Congress kitty,’’said a key state official involved with the project.

The project has been pending for the last six years and the MADC had surveyed a total of eight sites.