PAWAR HOPEFUL TO RESOLVE PURANDAR AIRPORT ISSUE

PUNE: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar is hopeful about resolving the Purandar international airport site issue as he will meet the ministry of defence (MoD) in the next 15 days to discuss the proposed Purandar international airport site, the non-objection certificate (NOC) for which was cancelled by the ministry in September 2021.

“The site for the Pune international airport in Purandar was finalised but now the ministry has raised concerns as their aircraft fly every day for training from the same site so we need to understand their stand and only then the issue will be resolved. It is my job, not Ajit Pawar’s,” said Sharad Pawar, during his visit to Supe village in Baramati, where he reviewed the ongoing construction work of Vidya Pratishthan Academic Complex. “In the next 15 days, I myself, along with MP (from Baramati constituency, NCP leader and daughter of Sharad Pawar) Supriya Sule and representatives of the state government will hold a meeting with defence ministry officials,” he said.

The site originally proposed for the international airport was changed because of opposition from villagers in Purandar tehsil. A revised proposal, with a change in location, was submitted to the Centre for approval. The MoD gave the NOC on August 12, 2021, with certain conditions for the proposed new site however the NOC was cancelled on September 29, 2021.

The new airport site in Purandar tehsil includes the neighbouring villages of Rise, Naigaon, Rajouri, Pandeshwar and Pimpri. In February, Supriya Sule had said that an all-party delegation of MPs was scheduled to meet defence minister Rajnath Singh to discuss the issue of the international airport. Earlier in January after the Covid-19 review meeting, deputy CM Ajit Pawar had said, “The airport will be constructed in Pune. I do not want to speak anything regarding the site because it will be taken in a different way.”