An unprecedented crowd of 10,000 project- affected villagers gathered at Madban on Saturday morning, demanding outright cancellation of the Jaitapur nuclear power project. At the receiving end were chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and an array of ministers and party functonaries, who tried their best to impress upon the hostile villagers the goodness of clean power and gains of development.
Angry villagers led by Vaishali Patil and Shiv Sena MLA Rajan Salvi had already started sloganeering and distributing pamphlets against the project. They asked for revocation of punitive cases against villagers even as Chavan, accompanied by Industries Minister Narayan Rane, Forests and Rehabilitation minister Patangrao Kadam, MPCC chief Manikrao Thackeray, MP Nilesh Rane and a host of MPCC functionaries and MLAs arrived at the venue.
Janhit Seva Manch's Pravin Gavankar, who was invited on the dais, declared that all those assembled were locals and no outsiders were present. He expressed strong opposition to the project blaming NPCIL officers of misleading the villagers.
He also demanded that the government return the villagers' land " obtained by force." Amjad Borkar, representing the Macchikar Kruti Samiti expressed concerns regarding the hot and extra saline water released from the project. He also pointed out that neither NEERI nor the government carried out any surveys. He deamanded, " If in the future, goods produced in Jaitapur are branded ' radiation affected', would the government guarantee them a fair price?" and asked for scrapping of the project.
Another activist Dr. Milind Desai in his aggressive response said though the porject was to the tune over one lakh crore rupees, the government was only offereing Rs. 15 crore and this is a shame. He was by interrupted rudely by Rane. Shiv Sena MLA Rahan Salvi was also asked to step down the dais after he said that he did not trust the government.
Party spokesperson Hussain Dalwai and Mminister Patangrao Kadam tried to pursuade the villagers to see the development vision in the plan. Rane said the villagers' demeanour of slogans and opposition was unbecoming of a typical Konkanee and said this was an insult to the whole cabinet. He said those who were misleading the villagers clandestinely were coming to Mantralaya to ask for personal favours.
Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan asserted himself saying he knew more about the subject than most. He underlined the pressing need for power by emphaszing on the deficit saying, " Even today 50 per cent of India's households went without power." He also condemned the villagers who boycotted the open house on Jaitapur in Mumbai a few months ago.
He said such a huge investment would not happen again. The money spent is so huge that it would create many institutions, many jobs and change the economy. The plan for a press conference later at the state guest house went haywire as the CM spoke to reporters at the project site itself before taking off for Mumbai.
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