Cidco certain of getting farmers on board in 15 days

The City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) has decided to schedule a meeting of various stakeholders over the next 15 days and to resolve the land acquisition issue to develop the Navi Mumbai international airport (NMIA) on time.

Cidco officials said the meeting will be attended by farmers whose land will be acquired for the airport, elected representatives, as well as officials from Cidco and the state government. The meeting will be chaired by chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.

“For the core of the airport, we require 1,160 hectares of land. Nearly 868 hectares of land are already in possession with Cidco, while we need 292 hectares of land from the local farmers,” said Pramod Hindurao, chairman of Cidco. “The farmers have also understood the importance of the airport and have agreed to hand over the land in lieu of the developed land and other incentives.” He assured that the people affected will be properly rehabilitated.

The farmers had earlier demanded Rs20 crore per acre of land, along with employment.

“It is very difficult to give such a high price for the farmers’ land. The land is of no use if the airport does not come up. We need development as well as satisfactory compensation to the affected stakeholders,” Hindurao said.

He said Cidco had recently met prime minister Manmohan Sigh, who agreed to extend all possible help required to complete the airport.

To expedite work, it was recently decided to rename the state-level coordination committee, headed by the state chief secretary, as the ‘project monitoring and implementation committee’. This panel will be entitled to give approvals, monitor bid documents, structure the bid process and undertake evaluation.

The project is likely to cost Rs14,500 crore and it will be carried out in four phases.