In rural setting, LIGO site on 121 ha draws curious villagers in droves

AUNDHA NAGNATH (HINGOLI): “Look friend, that’s a big NASA project and some great American scientists are working here to change life in our village for good,” Shahaji More tells a fellow villager who is riding pillion on his motorcycle as they stop near a huge tract of land.
The 66-year-old farmer from Dudhala village in Maharashtra’s Hingoli district, around 450km from Pune, has found this unique destination — a 121-hectare area demarcated for the Laser Inferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) — for his daily bike ride.




Like More, most people from Dudhala, Anjanwada, Nandgaon and Sawali villages around the LIGO land are curious about the project and the frequent visit by scientists since the past two years. The villagers have, with time, become acquainted with the term LIGO, but most of them still describe it as a “NASA project”, unaware about what’s in the offing in the land demarcated for the mega science project.

“We have been living in Dudhala for three generations and grow cotton and wheat. Our entire life has always been dedicated to agriculture. There are a few schools in the surroundings and one or two colleges. But there has always been a disconnect with science. All of us were surprised how the huge project is coming up in our neighbourhood,” More says.

Villagers dream of windfall, jobs from hitech project

In the past couple of months, yellow pillars have started cropping up at the project site. “We often see experts visit the place in big cars, holding discussions and taking photographs. Some of them are foreigners. All we know is that a NASA project is coming up here,” says Krushna Tarfe, a villager from Nandgaon.

The curious villagers often approach the local administration to find out what exactly is coming up at the site. Officials admit that the villagers are anxious to know about the science project, the first of its kind in Asia, coming up in their backyard.

Aundha Nagnath tehsildar Pandurang Machewad says land of nearly 40-50 villagers has been acquired for the project. “Initially, some were opposed to parting with their land. Some had even sought jobs for their children in exchange. But we, along with the collector, made them understand that it was not only unique for Hingoli, but the entire country.”

The villagers have been promised compensation and Machewad says it will be much above their expectations. The land is on an uneven terrain and unfit for agriculture. “It’s a win-win situation for the farmers as they will be compensated for the land that is anyways unusable,” the tehsildar says.

The LIGO detector will increase the ability and accuracy of localizing gravitational wave sources in the sky. The site in India will be a 150mwide area with 4km arms (strip of land) to the north and west to study the lasers.

The observatory will be set up, commissioned and operated in India with the help of leading institutes such as Institute of Plasma Research (Gandhinagar), Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Pune) and Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (Indore). IUCAA will be the key science stakeholder in LIGO-India.

For the residents of Hingoli, farming has been the traditional occupation. Most youngsters have also taken up farming, while a small percentage migrates to urban areas in search of jobs. But with the land acquisition process under way for the project, villagers are optimistic about getting jobs. Machewad says many are approaching the authorities to find out if there will be jobs for them.

“The project looks very high profile, so most villagers will definitely not be a part of it. But they can offer some class IV jobs to the youngsters — maybe as security guards or office assistants,” says Somnath Pawar, a 23-year-old resident of Dudhala.