Team Herald
PANJIM: The people of Benaulim are not against the western bypass project but are fighting for the protection of local ecology which will get destroyed if the road is not constructed on stilts, said architect and ex-sarpanch of Benaulim Royla Fernandes said.
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Benaulim villagers have resolved to submit a memorandum to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) seeking the intervention of the PM to build the bypass on stilts. They have upped the ante for constructing the western bypass on stilts on the entire 2.75 Km stretch and not just stretch admeasuring 980 meters in Seraulim and Mungul as recommended by The 10-member National Green Tribunal (NGT) panel.
The signature campaign launched by the gram sabha members of Benaulim village has already received a tremendous response and is expected to meet its target of 10,000 signatures in the next few days itself.
Royla said that one of the main reasons the expert panel did not heed public demand is that it did not take the local population into confidence before giving its recommendations.
She was speaking at Herald TV’s Point-Counter Point programme, where expert panelists analyzed how the people’s movement for western bypass on stilts started, how the ecosystem is linked, and wherever the road construction has been done on stilts, the environment has been saved.
“As architects, we go to a location and study the place. But there are people with traditional knowledge. It is the traditional knowledge that is always overlooked. We ignore the ancestral history of the land. These wetlands which are there in Benaulim for which we are fighting are the major catchment area for the entire River Sal, which originates from Verna. But the water that flows in this area is not just from rainfall. It is just not from Verna, Betalbatim, Colva, Benaulim. It is all integrated. That’s how the water reaches here,” the panch member said.
Citing the example of Vorlke tode lake, which has sluice gates, she said: “These gates are very instrumental wherein the particular place Survey no 134, 136 we group two crops. That’s how we store the water and use it to irrigate the fields. Agricultural lands are in an east-west direction. So the water flows naturally. We are pro-development. But by boxing the culverts, you are destroying the hydrology, disrupting the normal flow of water, and destroying the fields,” she said.
Although there has to be a political will to resolve such teething issues, the positive side is the people are leading this movement with participation from various quarters of life, including children. How heartening it is for activists fighting for a cause?
“On November 14, 2019, the people’s movement started. It is a perfect thing to happen. But there should be also the political will to deal with such issues,” Deputy Sarpanch and chairman of Biodiversity Management Committee of Benaulim Nilesh Prabhudesai said.
Royla Fernandes agreed that it is a people’s movement and which started on Children’s Day in 2019. “In fact, the construction started in 2015. On February 21, 2016, the gram sabha of Benaulim submitted a resolution to all the government authorities that we want an elevated road and bypass on stilts. People are part of this movement,” she said.
