Rehab of village under Mihan still stuck

Nagpur: Shivangaon, a village of 1500 households, continues to be a trouble spot for the Mihan project. The village needs to be taken over for building the second runway which will be needed when airport operations reach full scale. Despite announcing a rehabilitation package in October 2011, the new settlement for Shivangaon residents is not ready.
On Tuesday, the villagers entered Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) office demanding a solution. “The announcement was made by the then chief minster Prithviraj Chavan on October 8, 2011. Five years have passed and the settlement at Chinchbhuvan is not ready with the required infrastructure. The village should have shifted to the site more than two years ago,” said Baba Dawre, the leader of Shivangaon’s project affected persons (PAPs). “We will not shift till the site is ready. Shivangaon land is crucial for MADC,” he said.
The village has been in news even earlier for strong protests against the project. Over eight years, the PAPs managed to invite every polticial leader including chief minister to Devendra Fadnavis, who was then in the opposition, to speak for their cause.
The villagers had also blockaded work on the taxiway connecting the existing runway with the Air India MRO to press their demands.
Officials in MADC accept there has been a delay in construction. The new settlements for other villages taken over for the project are ready and PAPs are gradually shifting. However, the work remains pending for Shivangaon, said a source in MADC. Construction of roads is going on and recently tenders for setting up the power lines had been called for, he said.
Dawre said unless basic facilities like power and water were ensured the villagers could not move.
Nakul Ambhore, a resident of Shivangaon, said, “when Fadnavis was an opposition leader he said the site will be ready within a year after BJP came to power. It has been two years since then. Later, the authorities said it will happen in March after which it was promised on August 15, and we are still waiting.”
Besides, those living in joint families in the village are facing a peculiar problem. The units are divided but the homes are within the same compound. The scheme calls for a different plot for each unit in a joint family but PAPs have to submit an electric bill for every unit. As many have single power bill, it has become a technical issue for those handling the rehabilitation work.