Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Dinesh Kamath's news item 'When will Navi Mumbai airport project take off?' that was published in Newsband




When will Navi Mumbai airport project take off?
By Dinesh Kamath
NAVI MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government is deciding as to how much compensation should be paid to acquire the remaining land for the Navi Mumbai airport project. The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) has been asked whether in this case too the land owners should be paid the same amount as paid to land owners from nearby areas in other projects.
CIDCO has succeeded in acquiring 70% of the land. But the land owners are refusing to part with the remaining land since they want the compensation to be on par with what is offered to other project-affected persons in other areas.
The government showed willingness, if necessary, to provide different compensation package to the land that has to be still acquired. CIDCO had proposed to give back 12.5% of the land acquired from each individual back to them after development in some of the other projects in the district.
There are some PAPs who claim that they have not been given anything yet even after they parted their land for government projects. They are planning to agitate and they have support of parties like Shiv Sena and Peasants and Workers Party. The government is worried because this protest is just coming at a time when the state and central elections are round the corner. 
The airport project of Navi Mumbai is touted as a mega infrastructure project to ease Mumbai's air traffic woes, but it still remains mired in property disputes. The proposed new norms for land acquisition will make it harder to buy the extra land due to the additional cost. Another thing is that the changes to the 19th Century Land Acquistion Act 1894 are pending before Parliament.
Due to all these complications, the residents of Navi Mumbai are wondering as to how long will it take to transform this dream of constructing Navi Mumbai airport into reality.

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