Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and some cabinet ministers will negotiate with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in an attempt to tone down his opposition to the Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway. Senior officials, part of the high power committee appointed to monitor the progress of the project, said on Friday that the negotiations will be headed by finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.
“The Sena has been consistently opposing the project, earlier on the issue of farm compensation and now demanding to know why the highway must lead to Nagpur and not any other city. The committee discussed these issues at length and the government has decided to initiate informal discussions with Mr. Thackeray,” a senior official and member of the committee said.
The expressway project, called Samruddhi Corridor, is estimated to cost ₹46,000 crore, of which the Asian Development Bank is expected to provide ₹13,750 crore. Close to ₹24,000 crore is needed for civil construction, while the rest is to be spent on land acquisition, development of nodes, contingencies and financial charges and utility shifting.
Mr. Thackeray had announced his party will only support the project if the farmers gave up their land voluntarily and “not by force”. “We are in power but will not support the project if it hurts the interest of the farmers,” Mr. Thackeray had said last year.
The Sena had, however, changed its tone earlier this year following the first round of informal talks with the government. Mr. Thackeray later said his party would talk to the farmers and convince them of the benefits of the project as the government has not been able to communicate the benefits the projects. Members said the government has already formed a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the project to construct the expressway. Formed under the Companies Act, 1956, the SPV is to be a subsidiary of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which is executing the project for the government.
