SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2024
GARY AZAVEDO
Chandor: In an exclusive chat with Herald, the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) Officer on Special Duty (OSD) John Shilshi reiterated that he was very clear on his stand that he could not tell lies, mislead or misinform the people who are demanding that the double tracking be stopped.
“Such decisions whether to halt this national project or continue with the project have to be taken by the central government. I have made it very clear in Chandor to the villagers that our position remains. This call to stop the work completely we cannot take at our end. There is nothing new and no change in our position. There is no point in misleading people telling them we will look and then go ahead. After all, it’s a project that has been decided at the national level and whether or not the project will stop or continue that type of call can only be taken by the people in Delhi, the Central government. It is not in our position,” said Shilshi.
Referring to the recent protests at Guirdolim, Shilshi clarified that they had spoken to the villagers as ‘there were certain misunderstandings on the ground regarding the construction and the land taken and a few other issues for example, there was a water body that was disturbed because of the work. “Those were raised and those have been actually discussed. Likewise, such kind of localised issues we will always discuss and find out ways and means of correcting it or measures which can be acceptable to both sides. But completely saying stop work, that call cannot be taken at our level,” said Shilshi.
“There are times when people have discussed as they don’t want ROB (road over bridge) to be in a particular angle or in a particular fashion, we have taken shifting here and there depending upon the ground situation. Or say, in the case of Chandor wherein people were initially not very happy because they thought that there would be lots of railway lines in that station. But we have decided and we have reduced the earlier six lanes because that is going to be a bigger station almost like Margao,” divulged the retired IPS officer, now based in Goa.
