Allow construction in Lavasa City, demand villagers

A delegation of villagers has approached the Union minister of environment and forests, Jayanti Natarajan, requesting her to permit resumption of the work at the controversial Lavasa project.
Members from the gram panchayats of Bhoini, Mugaon, Admal, Dhamanohol and Mose Kore met the minister recently at Delhi.

Lavasa Lake City is a massive township planned over 12,500 acres, 65 km from Pune. The construction work at Lavasa was stopped following directives of the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) last year after directives from the former MoEF minister, Jairam Ramesh.

Also, activists from National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) had moved the Bombay high court seeking stoppage of the work, alleging blatant violation of environmental laws.
In a petition, the villagers asked Natarajan to lift the stop work notice served by the ministry.

The villagers stated that stoppage of the work resulted in financial hardship for them. “The Lavasa project was instrumental in improving our standard of living. Since the work has come to a standstill, we are in trouble,” the letter stated, while praying for an early resuming of the work.

However, Suniti SR, member of the NAPM, doubted the credibility of the villagers who had approached the ministry. “The people who approached the ministry seem to have sold their honour along with their land,” she said, adding, “We are not against the generation of employment for the villagers. The Pune district collector has promised to start the employment guarantee scheme at Lavasa.”