Chavan seeks 10 days to look into Vasai villagers’ demand

MUMBAI - Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan Saturday said that issues related to Vasai villagers’ demand to exclude 18 villages from the Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) in Thane district will be resolved within 10 days.

Chavan gave the assurance to a delegation of villagers led by Vasai’s independent legislator Vivek Pandit during a meting at the chief minister’s official Mumbai residence Varsha Sunday, an aide of the assembly member said.

“We respect the chief minister’s wishes and, accordingly, we have decided to postpone our agitation and march (to Mumbai) by two weeks,” Pandit told IANS shortly after the meeting with Chavan Sunday evening.

Chavan’s assurance came shortly after over 5,000 villagers and tribals launched a march from Vasai to his residence, a distance of 100 km, Sunday morning. The march was organised to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary.

The marchers covered around 10 km before Chavan called Pandit for the meeting.

The march was a part of the ongoing agitation against the inclusion of 18 villages in the newly-formed VVMC.

Pandit told Chavan that the state government had not issued the notification on the 35 villages it had agreed to delink from the VVMC earlier this year, the legislator’s aide said.

The march was intended to be the culmination of a weeklong campaign in which Pandit and his supporters “begged” Re.1 from the people in support of their demand.

“So far, we have collected over Rs.54,000 and we planned to donate it to the chief minister after our Long March,” said Navin Dube, co-ordinator of the Shramjeevi Sanghatana, an organisation founded by Pandit.

The money was collected by Pandit and others from railway stations like Virar, Nalla Sopara, Vasai, Naigon, temples and other places of worship, markets, bus stops and other public places in the Vasai constituency.

Pandit said that for nearly two years the people have been demanding the exclusion of 53 villages from the VVMC jurisdiction and the Sanghatana has carried out several agitations.

In March this year, the agitation took a violent turn and police caned the villagers and tribals, injuring several people including women and senior citizens.

Later, the state government agreed to exclude 35 villages from the VVMC, but there was no progress on the status of the remaining 18 villages in the corporation, which is based barely 40 km from Mumbai.

The inclusion would be against the wishes of gram sabhas, Pandit said.