Police detain former MLA Balaram Patil for protesting against NAINA

Panvel Taluka police detained several villagers including former Peoples and Worker Party (PWP) MLA Balaram Patil on Friday for allegedly opposing Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Area (NAINA) in Devad village in Panvel taluka. However, they were let off after two hours.

Villagers under the banner of NAINA Project Affected Utkarsh Samiti (NPAUS) have been opposing NAINA for a long time over the compensation issue.

NAINA is a participatory land pooling scheme where villagers will get 40 percent of the developed land of the total land they will surrender to develop NAINA city in the Raigad district. At present, CIDCO is executing a pilot project, consisting of 23 villages in the Raigad district. Villagers’ allegations

Meanwhile, the villagers alleged that a land parcel meant for grazing of animals was bought by CIDCO and was allotted to private developers.

Advocate Suresh Thakur, Chairman of Navi Mumbai 95 Villages NAINA and Other Project Affected Committee said that when CIDCO can buy land from the government body, it can also acquire land from villages by giving proper compensation.

“In the land pooling scheme, villagers will get only 40 percent of the total land to be surrendered. Since they will not get any monetary compensation, what they will do with the land. Their farming will also go away with the scheme,” said Thakur.MLA says project will take away villagers’ lands

Former MLA Patil said that the NAINA project will snatch villagers’ lands. Patil had led a protest with a fleet of farmers’ vehicles from Panvel to Belapur in March.

According to villagers, the impact assessment report says that around 42% of land in NAINA is multi-crop land. How will the villagers survive if they surrender these lands and get only 40% of the development land? Even villagers have to pay different charges for development.”