Khed airport plan faces Sena stumbling block

Shiv Sena’s Shirur MP Shivajirao Adhalrao-Patil on Friday came out openly against the proposed airport project at Khed. He criticised the state government for unilaterally changing the sites for the ambitious project without taking local elected representatives into confidence.

Additional collector Ganesh Patil held a meeting with Adhalrao and a delegation from his constituency. The long-pending demands of farmers affected by projects like Chas-Kaman and Bhama Askhed were discussed and the additional collector assured the delegation that the pending issues will be sorted out in a phased manner. There was a meeting of villagers on last Friday to express their resolve to oppose the airport project.

Adhalrao met district collector Vikas Deshmukh and handed over a memorandum of demands. Later, speaking to media persons Adhalrao said the leaders were playing with the sentiments of the locals. He said that they take  decisions on important projects by sitting in air-conditioned rooms of five-star hotels and Mantralaya.
He said that on one hand, there was no rehabilitation of project affected persons from his constituency after 40 years of completion of the projects and the government was imposing unilateral decisions like airport which would take away thousands of acres of land. He said that soon after the news reports appeared about the new proposed site for the airport project, farmers contacted him and expressed their opposition to the project.