Lavasa residents seek Modi’s help to save project

Residents of the Lavasa hill station project have launched an online petition addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to save the city facing infrastructure issues and liquidation. They want the Centre to include the hill station project under the Prime Minister's Smart City Mission programme. Within 48 hours since the launch of the petition on Wednesday, around 700 people from Lavasa and across the country have responded to it. At present, Hindustan Construction Company's real estate firm, Lavasa corporation, is facing insolvency proceedings with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitting the plea of the lenders of the debt ridden realty firm under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. Lavasa was initiated in accordance with the Maharashtra's government policy and regulations for new hill stations as India's first privately built smart city with over 2,200 apartments and villas, hotels and numerous city amenities and services. The project was impacted by a ministry of environment notification to stop work for jurisdictional reasons and not for environmental infractions.