Navi Mumbai: In a bid to vacate villages falling in the area demarcated for the Navi Mumbai airport project, planning authority CIDCO is allegedly resorting to issuing warnings via local villagers it employs as security guards.
A video doing the rounds on social media shows CIDCO chief vigilance officer Vinay Kargaonkar threatening to sack security guards if they don’t vacate their homes within seven days. In the video, Mr. Kargaonkar is heard saying: “Within seven days, give us the acceptance letter and vacate your homes, else we will speak to the security board and ask them to not send you guys here for work. Do you feel it is right to go against us while working for us?”
Close to 41 guards deployed at the CIDCO unit by the security guard board belong to villages falling in the airport project zone. “Earlier, CIDCO had offered an incentive scheme to homes vacated at the earliest. When that didn’t work as expected, CIDCO officers are threatening to dismiss us from our jobs,” Ashok Gharat, Project Affected Person (PAP) from Varche Ovhala village, said.
Vandan Gharat, a Varcha Ovhala resident who was present when Mr. Kargaonkar threatened the guards, added, “Only those security guards belonging to the affected villages were called in by Mr Kargaonkar for the meeting. We have no issues with vacating our homes, but the place to which we are supposed to shift to should at least have basic amenities. The scheme offers us rent only for 18 months, which started from October last year.”
While 28 of the 41 guards belong to Varcha Ovhala village, others are from Kolhi, Kopar, Ulwe, Kombadbhuje and Targhar villages. “We’re being denied natural justice. We even offered to vacate in a week if CIDCO gives us permanent jobs," another security guard said. CIDCO officials declined to comment on the video.
