SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2024
Team Herald
MARGAO: The Leader of Opposition in Goa, Yuri Alemao, has demanded a high-level inquiry, headed by a retired High Court judge, to investigate the recent spate of forest fires in South Goa. Speaking to reporters in Margao on Tuesday, Alemao expressed concern about the environment and the loss of green cover due to the fires. He also alleged the involvement of a ‘fire mafia’ in the incidents at Paroda Hills in Cuncolim and Chapoli dam in Canacona. Alemao suggested that the fires were not isolated incidents and that there is a systematic game plan to destroy green cover with an eye on the land to be used for real estate.
Alemao criticised the government for failing to take adequate measures to prevent such fires in eco-sensitive areas. He claimed that he had warned the government of the ‘fire mafia’ operating in Goa, and urged Forest Minister Vishwajit Rane to appoint a high-level committee to investigate the fire incidents.
The LoP further stated that he had received responses to various Legislative Assembly questions, which exposed the government's lack of preparedness to handle and manage fire incidents in eco-sensitive areas. He accused the government of only providing assurances without any action plan in place.
Alemao visited the Paroda Hills site, where he spoke to forest officials and the South Goa Collector. He claimed that all of them had shown their limitations and remarked that the Disaster Management Cell itself is weak in Goa.
In a press statement issued on Tuesday, Congress president Amit Patkar echoed Alemao’s sentiments, stating that it cannot be a coincidence that huge forest fires have erupted only after Vishwajit Rane took over as the Minister for Forest and Town and Country Planning.
Patkar demanded that Rane’s role be probed immediately and questioned the Minister’s ‘total silence’ on the recent forest fires. “Will he speak-up and answer Goans why eco-sensitive and green lands are burning in his tenure? He appears to be in a hurry to become Minister for concrete jungles under CM Pramod Sawant,” Patkar alleged.
