Ajit Pawar targets government over Samruddhi corridor

NCP leader Ajit Pawar has alleged that the ‘Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Corridor’, the ambitious infrastructure project undertaken by the BJP-led Maharashtra government, “will destroy farmers” by acquiring their land.

“The Samruddhi corridor is not a path of development, but it is a path which will destroy the lives of farmers,” Pawar said, addressing the concluding rally of the second phase of ‘Sangharsh Yatra’ campaign at Shahapur in Palghar district on Tuesday evening.

Opposition Congress and NCP have launched the campaign to demand a loan waiver for farmers.

The proposed 750-km “communication highway” connecting Mumbai and Nagpur (‘Samruddhi Corridor’) will need acquisition of 56,000 acres, Pawar said.

“Farmers will have to give up their fertile and irrigated land in areas like Shahapur, Igatpuri, Sinnar and Kopargaon,” he alleged.

Mumbai and Nagpur were already well-connected by air and rail, he said, adding, “the existing road infrastructure could have been upgraded... whose prosperity the government wants by proposing a new highway?”

On one hand the Devendra Fadnavis government said it did not have money to waive farm loans, while, on the other, it was going to spend Rs 46,000 crore on this corridor, he said.

Similarly, the government was also proposing to spend Rs 1 lakh crore on Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train, Pawar alleged.

The BJP government at the Centre had written off Rs 2.80 lakh crore-worth loans of industrialists, but did not have money to waive Rs 30,000 crore loans of farmers, he said.

The third phase of Sangharsh Yatra, from Raigad to Satara, will be undertaken soon, he said.