SANGUEM: Over three lakh square meters of land ‘notified’ for ‘investment’ nearly 500 palm trees and an absolute eyesore which will see a beer and whiskey factory coming up in the idyllic village of Amdai–Uguem. All cleared by Goa’s Investment Promotion Board- the latest tool in the hands of the government to clear inconvenient projects without even converting land. This land is clearly marked as a “Orchard land”, which will see a alcohol and brewary plant of Vani Agro Farms Limited, headed by its Director Vivek Jain, cleared by the IPB. Do not be mistaken by the name “Vani Agro” since this is no agro based plant food processing plant. Shockingly an alcohol plant is nowhere in the list of eight thrust areas of the IPB officially laid down.
It is absolutely evident that the IPB has not just given a normal clearance but has acted as an active facilitator, against local interests.
The project is blessed and backed by the BJP MLA of Sanguem MLA Subhash Phal Desai. Phal Desai justifies the presence of the plant in this village openly. “This project is being opposed by a few locals led by people who have vested political interests. A majority of them are in favour because this will create jobs. Moreover the land does not belong to them”.
This is how a beer & whiskey plant replaced coconut trees
The IPB clearance was only a final stroke which caught everybody unawares. There is a background and a build up to this. Sanjay Gaonkar explains how this controversy is deep rooted and started playing out two years ago.
“Firstly, the villagers mooted to build a Balwadi school for the education of our children and we all contributed money to that school and its construction. Then the MLA intervened and brought Vani Agro and got them to contribute a fund to the school and added that name to the list of donors. Next we knew in 2013, Vani Agro had purchased this land of of 81/2-A from Anselmo and Sheryl Furtado, and 81/ 2 B from Joyee Furtado and Maurillo Furtado 100 meters from the Balwadi and made promises of a school and training institute for the locals but never discussed factory or industry. The total land amounted to a little over 1,20,000 square meters
D-Day December 21: IPB declares 3.07 lakh sq meters as Industrial Zone. Were people asked? No
On December 21, suddenly came the Goa Investment Promotion and Facilitation Board Notification declaring this 3.07 lakh sq. meters land as industrial zone. Once this was done the IPB simultaneously cleared a Whiskey and Beer factory and Beverages unit on a 3,07,000 square meter land in Amdai-Uguem, to Vani AgroFoods headed by its Director Vivek Jain.
“As if on cue, on the very same day, there began the land flattening, hill cutting, tree felling and in moved heavy machinery. We made a noise and got all the work preliminary stopped,” asserted another resident Damu Bandekar.
The 300-odd local Gaonkars led by their Councillor Prashant Gaonkar and the village elders are up against arms of the project since the land is being cleared of its 470 odd palm trees and they fear, the factory will pull water from the adjoining Uguem river leaving Amdai high and dry.
“The sad part is this constituency is always a BJP constituency and has had MLAs like Prabhakar Gaonkar, Vasudev Gaonkar and now Subhash Fal Dessai. But still the government took this decision without even visiting this site and taking our views into consideration This leaves us gaonkars of this land, deeply hurt,” explains Preeti Gaonkar, wife of former MLA Prabhakar Gaonkar. Preeti is the BJP Mahila Mandal President and is willing to gather women and children from the neighbouring Dhabal, Pontemoll, Pirla, Neturlim and other village to oppose this project.
The Sanguem Municipal Council, controlled politically by MLA Phal Desai, not surprisingly, gave a No Objection Certificate, to the IPB to allow this factory.
But Prashant Gaonkar, a councillor of the Sanguem Municipal Council is not amused. “Neither was I nor the residents of this place taken into consideration. Why have a factory here in the heart of a village when there is an earmarked Industrial Zone at the Sanguem industrial Estate,” asked Prashant who feels betrayed because he was the caretaker for this same Vani Agro Foods for two years of this land after they bought it from the Carmona based land owners, the Furtados.
“ These 470 odd trees and cashews trees which are being cut, uprooted and flattened are over 150 years old and were trees from our childhood. Why allow this factory that will pollute our river and flatten our grounds here in the midst of the village,” questions village elder Kishoibab Ambekar.
Kishoibab and 300 other villagers got together on Sunday at a public meeting at the Village temple, early morning to raise a protest against Vani Agro Foods and its owner Vivek Jain.
It clear though that Jain isn’t the least bit bothered when the state has bent over backwards to make laws which maked his business completely legit. It even allows him to cut as many coconut trees as he wants. As he nonchalantly told Herald, “The Goa government in its new notification has declassified, the Coconut Tree as a tree which means Vani Agro Farms Limited does not need forest clearance to fell or cut the 470 odd coconut trees on that land at Amdai, Sanguem”
