Palghar:
Tribals in Maharashtra’s Palghar Lok Sabha seat have cast their votes on Monday to save their ancestral land from being acquired for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train service project.
A report in The Hindu quoted Sevanti Shingde from Aamgaon Patilpada as saying that tribals are against the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train. “The government had said they will make provisions for the displaced people within six months, but that hasn’t happened,” she told the newspaper.
In tribal-dominated Talasari taluka, on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border, villagers said they were facing water scarcity, poor crops, unemployment and lack of medical access for decades. The bullet train was the last thing they ever wanted.
Hundreds of tribals here who have already been notified about land acquisition and proposed evacuation are desperate to save their homes.
The report quoted Naina Raju Pawar,32, as saying, “This is our land, we were born here and we won’t leave. We don’t want the bullet train; let the rich fly from Mumbai to Ahmedabad.”
The most pressing issue for the tribals here was a nearby dam which has served as the lifeline for the farmers here for decades and whose water is now being diverted to Gujarat. Kavada Thakarpada, former sarpanch Shankar Umbersada, told The Hindu, “The Kurje dam is in our vicinity, but all the water is going to Gujarat, despite the water shortage here.”