Team Herald
MARGAO: Social Welfare Minister and Sanguem MLA Subhash Phaldessai has dared the anti-IIT protestors to show proof that they have fields or any plantations at the proposed site for the IIT campus, while accusing them of being funded by vested interests who wish to block the advancement of high-quality technical education in the country.
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While addressing media persons on the sidelines of a function on Thursday to flag off a train carrying pilgrims from Goa to Tirupati, the Minister lashed out at the anti-IIT protestors for ‘creating a false and misleading narrative’ about the proposed IIT site. He challenged them to show one tree or any fruit or flower-bearing plant or any form of proof to show that they had fields at the proposed site.
He added that only if they can do that, their demands for shifting the IIT site are credible. Phaldessai also questioned if they were really farmers and asked where they were throughout the year or in the previous years and why they don’t have Krishi cards that are given to farmers in the State.
He also slammed media reports about farming taking place at the IIT site and said he can show that the place where these farmers had shared images with the media are at another site entirely and not at the real location chosen for the IIT campus.
The Minister further reiterated that the IIT campus will come up in Sanguem itself.
