Earlier talks with CIDCO and the December 15 deadline to relocate seems to have failed to convince villagers of ten villages marked for the Greenfield international airport

Navi Mumbai / Ulwe: The Navi Mumbai International Airport is likely to fail to meet the deadline as the project affected people (PAP) of the 10 remaining villages yet to vacate seem to have come to a disagreement with the unavailibity of amenities and basic provisions at the relocation site. The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) is yet to provide basic amenities at the site, they complained.

Earlier, officials had informed about a mutual agreement that was made between them and the villagers to vacate the villages by December 15 and everything seemed to be going as planned.

However, villagers have complained about the absence of even basic amenities at the relocation site and have determined themselves not to relocate until all amenities were made available. They further want CIDCO to meet all their community as well as individual demands.

The leader of the PAP, Rajaram Patil, has also written to the newly appointed Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray, hoping that the new governance would look into the matter at the earliest and pressurize CIDCO to meets all their demands and make all amenities available before relocating.

The villagers shared that taking into account the reputation of CIDCO when dealing with the PAPs in the past, it was in their best interests to ensure that the development authority fulfilled all promises before taking the land into possession. They fear that once the land is vacated, the authority will not fulfil the promises made.

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While all this goes on, construction in the airport land has picked up pace and works like cutting down the Ulwe hillock, changing the course of Ulwe river, levelling of the marshy land etc. are nearing completion. The work on terminals and the runway too has commenced. Now, CIDCO needs to relocate the villages to speed up work to be able to meet the given deadline.

Also, three villages are in need to be relocated owing to the onslaught of monsoon earlier this year.

To make matters worse, the association of villages relocated earlier have pledged their support to these villages accusing CIDCO of falling back on their promises.

Apparently, apart from no practical infrastructure in place at the relocation site, CIDCO has failed to provide the assured rent and construction costs as promised when agreeing to most of their demands.

The PAPs have been irked by CIDCO’s disinterest in fulfilling all the demands made by all the villagers affected by the Navi Mumbai International Airport project.

Considering the fact that it would take further time it would be needles to mention that the airport project won’t be able to meet the December 2020 deadline and even if it does then the quality of work would get compromised owing to lack of time.