FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2024
Team Herald
VASCO: The villagers of Velsao-Pale-Issorcim and the NGO Goencho Ekvott once again stopped Railway Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) officials for allegedly trespassing into private properties to conduct a land survey for the proposed railway double tracking.
According to Goencho Ekvott, they along with villagers questioned the RVNL personnel about the purpose of the survey work and the latter had no answer. When Velsao-Pale-Issorcim Sarpanch Maria Diana Gouveia asked them why the RVNL did not notify the village panchayat about the survey in the village, particularly when the villagers are opposed to railway double tracking, the RVNL personnel told her that the Indian Railways Act supersedes all other Acts, much to the annoyance of the sarpanch and the villagers.
“The RVNL authorities said that they had come to survey the area for railway double tracking but it was without authorisation from the District Collector,” said the Goencho Ekvott’s founder member Orville Dourado Rodrigues.
A press statement by Goencho Ekvott said that the RVNL is illegally claiming land adjacent to both sides of the existing railway track which was kept by their ancestors for the use of the villagers commuting as well as access to their nearby residences as surface vibration dampers and as storm water drains in the monsoon.
Dourado Rodrigues has appealed to Goans especially the Goan diaspora to come forward and protect their inheritance through the powers vested in the village panchayats in accordance with the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994. He has cautioned that Goans residing in villages face a bleak future due to coal pollution that has nearly destroyed the once verdant countryside, which will result in the community being further marginalised for lack of fertile farmlands and pollution-free settlement areas.
