Officials say a hurried acquisition of land by early next year, deadline set by the PMO, will result in duplication of compensation
Ever since the Navi Mumbai international airport project was announced in 2010, the construction work has failed to take due to one reason or the other. The primary one being the lack of consensus between the Project Affected people (PAP) and the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), the project implementation body, over the proposed compensation package.
The delays have engulfed the project to such an extent that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) set a deadline for the development body to acquire land by early next year. But senior CIDCO officials said trying to acquire plots in a hurry would lead to higher chances of duplication of compensation.
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They said the proposal to allocate 22.5 per cent of developed land to the PAPs is probably the best deal. But the PAPs feel they are being underpaid and are expecting CIDCO to propose a final offer by next month.
“We have given the PAPs an offer and they are analysing it. A lot of things, infrastructure-wise, would depend on the airport and any decision taken will impact the entire state. In the end, we are dealing with people and their plots, and hence rushing into things may not be the right thing to do. We are aware the project has got delayed and we are trying our best to accelerate work in the right way by maintaining transparency in the process,” a senior CIDCO official said.
Clean and clear
Sources in the CIDCO claimed that to ensure transparency, the development body is planning to set up kiosks wherein details regarding the project and the PAPs are available at a push of a button. “CIDCO wants to bring everything into public domain,” a source said. Another official said that scanning each and every file was a tedious job, but it was being done to ensure that nobody cheats CIDCO.
“So far, in the last three months, productive meetings have taken place between the higher authorities. CIDCO officials themselves visited the villages to understand the concerns of PAPs,” the official added.
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