Thaindian News

Mumbai, April 18 (IANS) Over 2,000 residents of 35 coastal villages in Maharashtra’s Thane district Monday reached the outskirts of Mumbai on the first day of their 100-km march to the state legislature to demand that their villages be kept out of the proposed Vasai-Virar municipality.

The procession, including fishermen and farmers, accompanied by their cows, buffaloes and goats, is led by Vasai independent legislator Vivek Pandit. It is expected to reach the legislature some time Tuesday afternoon after traversing a distance of around 45 km from the Dahisar check post, which is the northern entry to Mumbai.

The march was originally planned to end at Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s official residence ‘Varsha’ at Malabar Hill in south Mumbai but was diverted to the state legislature, where the budget session is underway, said Sandip Pawar, one of the organisers.

“We are demanding the delinking of 35 villages from the proposed Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC). It has been pending since three years and this is the second long march in the past one year,” Pawar told IANS.

Speaking to media persons, legislator Pandit said that in March last year, the state government had announced its decision in the legislature to exclude the 35 villages from the Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) and had April 5, 2010, issued a preliminary notification on the issue.

But the final notification has not yet come, Pandit said.

Five days ago, Pandit wrote to Chavan demanding the issuance of the final notification.

The agitation first started in 2006 when the government planned to include 53 villages in the VVMC, but 49 of the villages opposed the move.

Im March last year, the villagers were brutally caned by the police while Pandit went on an indefinite hunger strike for the demand of delinking, and the people resorted to a jail-bharo (courting arrest) agitation the following month, forcing the government to bow to their wishes.