Click to play videoAlibaug (Maharashtra): The huge tract of nearly 4,000 acres of agricultural land near Alibaug, some 120 km north east of Mumbai is the epicentre of a triangular fight between Reliance Energy and Tata Power.
While the two are fighting an ego battle, the local farmers on the third front are fighting for their existence.
Inspite of having independent MoUs with the state government for separate pieces of land, both companies have now set their eyes on a 1,000 acre block of land which overlaps both projects.
Put off by this battle, farmers now say that they are unwilling to sell their land to either company.
“Rs 2 or 3 lakh is not going to help any of us. I have three children. What use is Rs 3 lakh an acre for me,” asks a farmer, Rajaram Patil.
Another farmer, Govind Krishna Patil says, “Be it Tatas or Reliance, they are cheating us. Even our leaders in the village are harming us. They tempt our farmers by showing some money and are taking away our land.”
But this opposition is not just limited to Alibaug. Farmers in the entire Raigad district are already opposing land acquisition by the state government for various projects, which also includes SEZs.
“Its not just this project. There are three or four other projects - Mukesh Ambani's SEZ and other projects. Where will lakhs of farmers from Raigad go,” Patil says.
The farmers also fear the environmental impact that the two huge projects will have given that one is 4000 MW and the other 1600 MW in capacity.
So while two corporate giants Reliance energy and Tata Power slug it out in government corridors for prime agricultural land in Alibaug, the farmers are quite clear that no amount of money will compensate them for the long-term loss in productivity that they currently enjoy from this fertile land.
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