MARGAO: Over thousand people gathered at the Ravindra Bhavan Margao to protest against the presentation done by the Environment Ministry on the Coastal Zone Management Plan even though the officials continued with the presentation that was drowned off with the slogans.
Surprisingly Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral was the only person from the ruling party who faced the people’s ire and not a single other BJP MLA, including the three from Salcete, were present for the presentation that was supposed to be for the villagers of Salcete.
Incidentally the sloganeering was led by Sandesh Telekar who was the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Canacona at the last elections. Quite a number of sarpanchas and panchayat members from Salcete were also present amongst the crowd.
Congressman Avinash Tavares and social activist Judith Almeida were present with their suggestions and recommendations. But as they sought the answers only in writing they were asked to send their recommendations to the Environment Ministry.
As the Ravindra Bhavan hall was not available, arrangements were made to have the presentation in the foyer where initially only around 25 people were present while over 1000 people were shouting slogans outside and demanding that they be included in preparing the plan.
The slide show started at 3:50 pm where only the slides were visible but the audio was drowned by the slogans. At 4 pm the crowd surged forward and the presentation was stopped. What was displayed through the slide show was the salient points of the Coastal Regulation Zone notification 2011 while protesting villagers were asked to keep the posters and placards down.
However, the gathered crowd kept demanding that the CZMP prepared by National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management be scrapped and a new one be prepared by the local bodies with knowledgeable villagers.
The crowd kept shouting that they will not allow Goa to be sold and would protect the mother land at all costs and they kept asking Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral to resign.
