This is one ‘error’ the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) administration may not forget soon. While demolishing a vacant house in Ganeshpuri, one of the 10 villages being vacated for the Navi Mumbai International Airport, bulldozers razed a house with inhabitants on Friday. While officials claimed it was a ‘mistake’, the villagers have decided to take it up with the administration.
“My father, Kanha Koli who is 78 years old, and my mother were sleeping in their house at around 4.30 p.m. on Thursday when they suddenly heard sounds. On peeping out, they realised a bulldozer was on the rear end of their house demolishing the structure. If they had not have woken up on time, they would have come under the bulldozer,” Sudhakar Koli, also a resident of Ganeshpuri, said.
Following the incident, Mr. Koli sat in front of the bulldozer and called up villagers, after which the CIDCO officers went back. “The moment they realised that other villagers would gather here, they fled. While I was stopping them, they threatened me, saying I would be booked for obstructing government officers from discharging their duty. I sought help from the local police and requested them to register a case, but they didn’t. CIDCO has demolished a house that did not enter into any agreement with them,” Mr. Koli said.
Meanwhile, a CIDCO official said, on condition of anonymity, “A family in the same locality had vacated their house and since they could could not find labourers to demolish their house, they had asked us to do so. The team had gone to do the same and accidentally some of the part of an occupied house was damaged.”
Close to 350 households are yet to be vacated in the 10 villages. Around 150 homes each from Kombadbhuje and Ulwe villages are yet to be vacated while the remaining 50 are from the other villages. Of the 1,160-hectare project area of the airport, around 45 hectare is occupied by residents of 10 villages, which is close to 4% of the total project.
