Collector goes on leave as farmers' stir heats up
Raigad (Maharashtra) : Caught in a double bind of unremitting pressure from farmers in 45 villages protesting against a mammoth Special Economic Zone (SEZ) coming up here and an official obligation to continue the land acquisition, Raigad's harried district collector has gone on long leave.
Dadasaheb Zagde went to his hometown Pune March 30 after the anti-SEZ protesters forced him to give it in writing that he had not received any instructions, oral or written, from the government to stop the land acquisition process and that he was therefore duty bound to proceed with the work.
A source in the district collector's office said the stressed bureaucrat, who has applied for a 12-day leave, will in all likelihood extend it further, unable to bear the brunt of the agitation on behalf of a government that he feels is leaving him to fend for himself.
Efforts to contact Zagde at his Pune home drew a blank. "He is incommunicado for us too," the source told IANS
Farmers in Pen, Panvel and Uran tehsils of this coastal Maharashtra district are protesting against the Maha SEZ being created by the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Group. They confronted Zagde with repeated government assurances that it would not acquire their land and asked him to withdraw the acquisition notices they had received.
The farmers, led by the Jagatikaran Virodhi Kriti Samiti (Anti Globalization Action Committee) had earlier lifted a blockade of the busy Mumbai-Goa highway in deference to the bureaucrat's request and assurance from Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh that the government would not take their land for the project.
Not convinced that they are out of danger of losing their only source of livelihood, the farmers are determined to take part in Thursday's rally against all SEZs in the state at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai, their leader Vaishali Patil told IANS.
What is fuelling their suspicion about the government's motives is information about acquisition notices on fertile lands coming in the command area of the Hetavane irrigation project in the region. This involves hundreds of hectares.
While United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi has demanded that the government should not acquire agricultural land for any SEZ, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath had assured parliament after the Nandigram violence in West Bengal that fertile, double-crop lands would not be acquired for SEZs anywhere. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also held out a similar assurance.
The latest in the series of assurances came from Chief Minister Deshmukh that the government would not acquire any land for the Maha SEZ and that the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Group would have to satisfy the farmers on land price and rehabilitation.
The farmers are, however, not convinced.
Anti-SEZ action committee leader Vaishali Patil told IANS that the farmers are determined to oppose the project and will not part with their land irrespective of the price the Reliance Group may offer.
"We do not want a repeat of Nandigram here. In fact we do not want a single drop of blood to be spilled during our agitation. Nor are we against development. But we won't allow our fertile lands to be severed from us, come what may," he said.
