Mumbai, Oct. 4: Like Mukesh Ambani, younger brother Anil too is facing opposition to a project in Maharashtra’s coastal Raigad, from where hundreds of farmers began a seven-day protest march to Mumbai yesterday.

Side by side, a power project by the Tatas — whom chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is wooing with land for the Nano plant — is also under fire.

Farmers are opposing the land acquisition process that started this week for two plants by the Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Power, one based on coal and the other on gas. They will collectively generate 4,000MW at Shahapur in Raigad district’s Alibag tehsil, 110km from Mumbai.

Farmers in Pen tehsil of the district, 35km from Alibag, have already participated in a state-conducted referendum on Mukesh’s proposed special economic zone (SEZ) there, the outcome of which the government has not released.

Pen’s anti-SEZ farmers, protesting for two years, were furious today when Deshmukh did an about-turn and said a referendum could not be seen as state policy.

In Alibag, 500-odd farmers from 78 villages began their march from a temple last evening and are expected to reach Mumbai for a major protest on October 10.

They are protesting against Anil’s two plants as well as a 1,600MW thermal plant in the neighbourhood by Tata Power, for which a combined total of 4,000 acres are required.

Rajan Bhagat, member of the Alibag farmers’ committee that has been leading the protests along with the Peasants’ and Workers’ Party (PWP) since last year, said: “The land acquisition process has been initiated though the government knows the local people are against it.”

Bhagat said the project was likely to displace more than 50,000 people in 13 villages.

“The government has not been transparent… since the MoUs were signed with Reliance and Tata Power three years ago. Under the land acquisition law, a project report detailing the affected zone and explaining why so much land is required has to be submitted. That has not been done.”

He said that like the Pen villages where the Mukesh Ambani-promoted Maha Mumbai Special Economic Zone is to come up, the Alibag region too is a double-crop area.

Bhagat said Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who is holding a conclave of his Nationalist Congress Party in Alibag, had turned down his request for an audience.

In Pen, Deshmukh had initiated the referendum to find out if acquisition of the 10,000 hectares would meet any opposition from the 5,900 prospective landlosers.

Vaishali Patil, member of the Pen anti-SEZ committee, said the farmers would release the voting data they had collected during the September 21 referendum in Pen on Monday.