PUNE: A section of men of
Purandar
taluka
softened their stand
on the
ground level obstacle limitation survey
for the
proposed international airport
on Friday morning, but women decided to be at the
fore front of agitation
against the project in the evening.
The “shaky” men toyed with the idea of allowing the officials carry out the survey on government and forest land a day after it teed off amid protest and detention of over 1,000 villagers. But the tables turned by the evening with the villagers chalking out a stronger strategy to protest against the survey with women as the leading force.
“A total of 1,050 villagers were detained on Thursday after we had tried to halt the survey work. The detention and the administrations’s announcement that no one can stop the survey on government land created a fear psychosis among many villagers. Many of us considered allowing the study. But the women of the villages got angry and decided to lead the protest marches and rallies from now on. Seeing their steel will, we also mustered courage and a delegation consisting of people from the seven villages headed to Pune to meet the collector,” a villager told TOI.
Sadashiv Memane, another villager, said, “We had discussions with additional collector Ramesh Kale. He said that we shouldn’t have any problem with the survey, presently going on in the government land. The official said things had not been finalized yet, but cautioned us against holding protests because strict action could be initiated”
Thursday was the first day of the survey. A section of villagers had surrounded the team conducting it. They were detained and released from the Saswad police station after over an hour. The villagers convened an emergency meeting on Friday evening to decide the further course of action.
Purandar Tahsildar Sachin Giri said the authorities were more interested in discussions with the villagers rather than taking action. “The survey will go on for six weeks. The situation was OK on Friday. Rather than taking action, we are interested in talking to them about the issue but we have to take care of the law and order issue,” Giri said.
Forest panel
According to an initiative of the state government, a villager of the area concerned is a member of the forest conservation committee. As for the forest area in Purandar, one Rohidas Memane is a member of the panel. It is his and the villagers job also to look after the forests. If anything goes wrong in the forest area, they are answerable to authorities. “So, it cannot be said that we should wash our hands off when a survey is taking place in the forest area,” Memane said.