PERNEM
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant faced an irate crowd at Mopa that blocked the main entrance during his visit to the under construction airport on Friday.
Angry locals questioned him over the pending development work and for not inviting the local MLA, Sarpanch and panchas for the inspection of the airport.
They also questioned him over how many unemployed youths from Pernem taluka would be given jobs at the new airport.
Caught by surprise, the Chief Minister, after realising the gravity of the situation through social media, visited the local MLA Pravin Arlekar’s home and brought him to the site along with him.
Sawant then requested the irked crowd to let him first visit the site of the Mopa airport and assured to come back and have an interaction with them.
After the visit, Sawant met the protesters and interacted with the sarpanch and panch members.
He invited them to discuss the issue with him in the hall. However, the hall was small and could not accommodate everyone. This infuriated them even more as the Sarpanch and Panch members had to make their own seating arrangement.
The BJP head from the area Tulshidas Gawas and Mopa Sarpanch Subodh Mahale questioned the CM about the pending works and also sought to know why they had been sidelined during his visit for inspecting the airport.
The airport that’s being constructed at Mopa has been standing on the land taken from five panchayats, which is more than 90 lakh sq mts. Before the project kick-started, locals were assured of getting jobs and opportunities to start small and big businesses.
But these never materialized and locals claim that only 8 percent of them have got jobs till date, especially at a time when the airport is supposed to open next month.
The sarpanch said no other unemployed local youth have been offered any jobs.
