Nagpur farmers protest air cargo hub

Nagpur : Baliram Zade lives in Khapri villege on the outskirts of Nagpur. He is the owner of more than eight acers of land.

Baliram supports himself and his family on the cotton crop that ensures him a steady income of over a lakh of rupees per annum.

But it's Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel's ambitous project of setting up an international air cargo hub in Nagpur that may simply distroy Baliram Zade's very source of livelihood.

"The cargo hub project for Nagpur has been cleared. We will give concessions to those who come for operations here," says Patel.

The Civil Aviation Ministry and Maharashtra Government are now going ahead with the cargo hub project to be built on the outskirts of Nagpur.

Baliram Zade is not the only one who will lose his land.There will be thousands of others who will have to part with their land and businesses.

"This cargo hub project is taking away our land, they are forcing it on us just giving some small compensation. We will resist this," says Zade.

Villagers from Khapri, just outside Nagpur, discovered a boundry wall that had been built isolating villages from Nagpur city.

The Union Cabinet may have given its approval for setting up a multimodal international air cargo hub at Nagpur, but thousands of farmers in the area are up in arms against this project.

It is now becoming clear that they are in no mood to take things lying low and have started demanding either proper compensation or rehabilitation.

Says Farmers Action Committee member, Baba Davre, "They are taking away land at price that is not affordable this will make more farmers commit suicide."

Despite heavy resistance from farmers, land has been aquired by government on massive scale in this area. And nobody knows what will happen to farmers who have been displaced from here.

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