BICHOLIM: A group of residents have called upon the locals of Amona and Navelim to attend the public hearing, to be held near Vividha ground on March 14 and at Amona GPS on March 21, in large number to voice their opposition to the mining expansion project in the above two places.
Addressing a press conference at Bicholim, Pravin Fadte, a resident of Amona and Viraj Naik from Navelim accused the State government authorities of being hand-in-glove with the mining authorities and claimed that they have not taken any serious steps to create required awareness on the public hearing as it is in the interest of public and not the mining company or the government.
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He said, “This project which can employ hardly 50-odd local youth will lead to the devastation of around 25 surrounding villages including Amona, Navelim, Betki, Khandola, Marcel, Tivrem, Kudne, Velguem etc. Hence we don’t want this project at any cost.” He also accused panchas of Amona and Navelim of acting as “agents” of mining company.
He said they will come united to disqualify all the panchas if they fail to stop supporting the company.
Viraj said in the past no public hearing on any of the expansion project of the mining company was held despite the fact that such expansion projects come into red zone category due to which people are suffering.
He called upon people to take the advantage of the public hearing and attend it in large number to oppose the project.
Two more locals Swagat Gawas and Navanath Gawas claimed that earlier, the mining company fooled the comunidade authorities by not fulfilling the demand of the villagers of employing the local youth besides using the comunidade land for over 20 years on lease despite its expiry in 2011. Hence they raised objections to mining expansion project.
Pravin said the last date for online registration for villagers from Navelim panchayat area and other surrounding villages is March 5, while for Amona villagers the same is March 12.
He said for online registration the villagers can enrol their names on [email protected] while, those who cannot make online registration can post the letters with the required details.
