The twin pipelines are meant to be only six feet wide and underground, leaving the land above tillable as ever, say municipal authorities. What is bothering villagers along the 35-km route, most of it along the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, is that the water in the pipes, 525 million litres every day, will come from the Pavana Dam. They irrigate their fields with water released by the dam into the Pavana river.
Their protests are being spearheaded by the Bharatiya Kisan Manch and backed by the BJP and the Shiv Sena. Maval, the region under which the rural part of the project falls, is represented by the BJP in both the Assembly (Bala Begde) and Lok Sabha (Gajanand Babar). The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, which is undertaking the Rs-400-crore project under the JNNURM, is ruled by the NCP, which has come under fire from its Congress allies too. Read the full report here.
Source: Manoj More, Nisha Nambiar, Indian Express, Pune.
