Farmers agitate against land acquisition

Nashik, Aug 29 (UNI) Farmers from Adgaon village today protested against land acquisition by the Nashik district administration.

According to the farmers, the district administration was acquiring fertile farm land in Adgaon to give it to the Bhujbal Knowledge City affiliated to the Mumbai Education Trust. Already 13 hectares of land has been given for the same purpose. Even now the farmers are ready to give arable land but the administration is adamant on acquiring road front fertile land at lower rates than the market price.

Around 50 farmers from the area today gave a memorandum to Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray in this regard. Thackeray was on his way to Nashik to held meeting with his party office-bearers. MLA Baban Gholap and NMC Commissioner Vinayak Pande accompanying Thackeray assured them to look into the matter. During this, traffic on the Mumbai-Agra Highway came to a halt for some time.

A meeting was held afterwards in which the farmers decided to stop acquisition of their land at any cost. The district administration is working under pressure from PWD Minister and Guardian Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and Bhujbal is taking undue advantage of being the Guardian Minister of the district, the farmers alleged. They restricted SDO Mahesh Patil from taking measurements of their land.

Two of them - Waman Malode and Sakharam Labhade, who own around 40 acres of land between them. With around 45 people from their families depend on it for their livelihood, warned the district administration to defer the process within next 15 days. In case of failure in this, they threatened to immolate themselves in front of the District Collectorate.

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