‘Don’t oppose development projects’

Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party Chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday criticised the people who are opposing new projects, which they feel damage the environment.

Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party Chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday criticised the people who are opposing new projects, which they feel damage the environment.

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“Some people oppose new projects in the name of damage to the environment. If this continues, how can employment be generated,” he said at an event organised by trade union leader Sharad Rao to merge two labour unions the Hind Mazdoor Kisan Panchayat with the Hind Mazdoor Sabha.

Expressing unhappiness that new power projects were getting stalled due to the opposition, Pawar said the projects were needed to encourage industry and generate jobs in the state.

Various new power projects that are coming up mostly in coastal Maharashtra are being opposed, because it is feared that the projects will damage the fragile ecology of the region. Besides, farmers are not keen to give their land for these projects. The state had a stand off with the Ministry of Environment and Forests over environmental clearance to the proposed Navi Mumbai airport.

Without naming the MNS or the saffron brigade, Pawar criticised “the efforts to divide the workers on the basis of religion, language and caste.”