The new Maharashtra government, which includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, is expected to finalise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s signature high-speed rail corridor project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. The primary goal is to acquire approximately 150 hectares of pending land in Maharashtra.
Along with that, the new government will also be working closely with the Centre to begin activity on the already acquired land in the state, like work has begun on the entire 352 km stretch located in Gujarat as well as Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
“The deadline of the project got pushed back at least three years from 2023 to the end of 2026 due to the attitude of the Uddhav Thackeray government since 2019. So much so that the Prime Minister had last instructed that the high-speed corridor be operationalised in Gujarat first, without waiting for Maharashtra. Now, we hope work will get fast-tracked on the entire stretch,” stated a senior government official.
The Prime Minister in a PRAGATI review meeting in November 2020 had asked the Uddhav Thackeray government to acquire and hand over all the land required for the project by April 30, 2021. But that was to no avail.
The Thackeray government had termed the project a “vanity one” and said it was not its priority, saying there was already good rail connectivity between Mumbai and Ahmedabad and said such a high-speed rail corridor would in fact be more beneficial between Mumbai and Nagpur. This led to delays in land acquisition in Maharashtra.
About 108 km of alignment of the project passes through Palghar where there is considerable public resistance in villages to the land acquisition. The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) last year decided to appoint an agency or a consultant for “communication management and facilitation in land acquisition for Palghar district” where nine villages have been opposing giving up their land for the project.
The agency will communicate details of the project and “its offering or benefits from the government to the stakeholders and communicate back to NHSRCL the pain points or responses of the stakeholders”. The agency will also assist NHSRCL and the Maharashtra government in facilitating the various activities in land acquisition for the project.
This will involve taking consent of gram sabhas in the nine villages in question that “are to be persistently persuaded and convinced to agree for the project and to give consent for the project”, the document says. All nine villages come under the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act.