It is common to see youngsters and middle-aged men sitting idle in the Chinchpada village square at sun set. For most it is the end of one more day without work. Chinchpada is a small village of about 1,100 families near Khandeshwar railway station.
About 40 years ago the villagers lost more than 800 acres to the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO), when new Bombay or what is today known as Navi Mumbai was being set up for accommodating the burgeoning population of Mumbai.
Today the same villagers are faced with the threat of losing their houses to the international airport project, also being built by CIDCO.
Since losing their farmlands to CIDCO, about 90 per cent of the villagers are unemployed. They do odd-jobs and get by on the old compensation provided for their lands. Chinchpada too will soon cease to exist as it would be bulldozed for the international airport being built to cater to 10 million passengers by 2020.
Even a casual mention of the airport project makes the villagers livid. Their rage against CIDCO, the lead airport developer, is palpable.
35-year old Anil Keni, who is going to lose his house for the project, says CIDCO’s officers are going back on the promises made last year in a series of meetings, which was presided by the erstwhile Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
CIDCO was supposed to give three times the core area of the village, which is being reallocated at a nearby site. But the villagers are not getting that at the new site. For example, if a person has two houses in the existing village he will get space for only one house in the new site.
PP Keni, the chief of a local committee demanding the rights of the residents, said that CIDCO has also goofed up on the house surveys.
In the old village, five families are staying in five tenements but under a single roof. In the new settlement the families are only eligible for a land plot on which only one house can be built, “What kind of logic is this?” he asks.
Many residents have houses built over nine gunthas (40 gunthas make one acre) of land but CIDCO has set an upper limit of seven gunthas as land compensation, which is also a major hindrance in the land acquisition process, Keni says.
Satish Bhoir, a local resident, says that CIDCO had promised vocational training for the youngsters in the villages, which will help them get jobs at the airport. “They have started vocational courses for beauticians and tailoring, which have no direct relevance to the jobs, which will come up at the airport,” he complains.
The villagers are determined to get their dues this time and are planning to agitate.
CIDCO officials were not available for comments. GMR Airports, Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), Hiranandani Developers along with Zurich Airport Developers, and MIA Infrastructure Pvt Ltd along with Tata Realty have been short listed by CIDCO for constructing the Navi Mumbai airport, out of the nine national and international consortiums that had expressed interest.
These four developers will submit their financial bids by August and CIDCO will select the final bidder by October. The first phase of the airport is expected to be completed by 2019 for 10 million passenger capacity.