SUNDAY, MAY 05, 2024
l The Goa government has admitted in the Assembly that the Major Ports Bill passed in parliament is going to make all laws protecting our land “useless”, in the Port limits
l When the bill was passed in the Lok Sabha before going to Rajya Sabha, what was the opposition Congress MP from South Goa Francisco Sardinha doing?
l Whose advice was Sardinha seeking to protect Goa? As Goa’s voice in Parliament he said nothing from March 12, 2020 when it was introduced till Sept 23, 2020 when it was passed in Lok Sabha
l GOA ALSO WANTS TO KNOW: Why didn’t the Goa government stop this from March 2020 when it was brought to Lok Sabha to February 10, 2022 when it was passed in the
Rajya Sabha
The Goa government made a very big admission in the Assembly last week, which has gone unnoticed. IT WAS A MASSIVE ADMISSION and surprising to those who were unaware of what the Major Ports Bill, would do to Goa. It was in response to a LAQ (Legislative Assembly Question) by former CM and Navelim MLA Luizinho Faleiro, who asked a clear people’s question
a) Whether the government was aware that the Major Ports Bill which has been tabled in parliament has the potential to usurp the powers of the State and local bodies with regard to land use and town planning?
To this the TCP Minister Babu Kavlekar said that the government had examined.
b) Luzinho Faleiro then asked: “If so, (what is) the likely implication on/for the state? The TCP minister’s reply was: “The likely implication includes redundancy of the Goa Town and Country Planning Act and the Regional Plan/ODPs, …Goa Municipalities Act, the Goa Panchayati Raj Act, Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations, 2010 and Goa Land Revenue Code ( in the area under the Port limits
What is the significance of this reply?
The TCP Minister is saying that the laws that govern how land is to be issued under his department will no longer be valid in the port area, which will include not just the waters of the port but all villages and urban areas approximately from Betul in the South, the entire coast stretching all the way up to the Dona Paula harbour as well as interior villages which are on river banks.
This bill will do much more than regularising illegal lands. This will give a non-Goan institution complete right over Goa’s land laws and local bodies
The Bill is aimed at giving the Mormugao Port Trust absolute authority over its port jurisdiction. However, MPT will control not just the water, but the land area in the villages adjoining it.
It will have Ports Authority whose word will be final on any decision. It wants to give the permission of project or any construction and if the panchayat does not agree or it goes against the Regional Plan or ODP for that village, the will of the Ports Authority will be done. The Ports Authority will create its own master plan which will really be the master plan. None of Goa’s laws will be applicable.
It will have authority over our traditional villages, our fishing hamlets, our backwaters and even on the rights of fishermen, as the natural fishing waters will be under the all-powerful Ports Authority.
The Major Ports Bill is a part of the grand plan, which will use our highways, the railways and waterways to transport coal for projects outside Goa, with absolutely no social or economic benefit to Goa and Goans.
This bill will destroy tourism in major parts of South Goa as beach side activities, its shacks and the rural way of life that draws tourists will be out of bounds.
How can Goans accept this? Or allow this? And will those politicians who let Goa down by not speaking against it ever be trusted by the people?
The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 12, 2020. It was passed in the Lok Sabha on September 23, 2020, when South Goa Congress MP Francisco Sardinha was present in the House.
While the bill was for all the major ports in the country, Goa being a small state with more water bodies and a massive port area will suffer the most.
- Did our Congress MP we have chosen from South Goa where the total impact of the Major Ports Bill will be felt, study the bill when it was introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 12, 2020?
- If yes, did he make his party and Goans aware of what the bill will do to Goa?
- When the bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on September 23, 2020, did he stand up and speak to highlight the points in the Bill which would make Goa lose all control over its land?
- What was he waiting for? Whose counsel did he want or need? All he had to do, was to do his job paid for by us.
At the same time, Goa wants to know why the Goa government made no representation to the Centre or lead a delegation to Delhi
People want to know why Goa did not convey to the Centre which is ruled by the same party, that though this is a national bill the impact on Goa will be disastrous.
The North Goa MP of the BJP Shripad Naik has been a Union Minister and now he is the Minister of State for Shipping. As MP and Minister and now the Minster directly in the ministry under which the Bill comes, can he inform Goans his stand on the bill when his own party’s government in Goa has admitted that the bill will completely make so many important acts connected to the use of land and power of local bodies, totally invalid?
Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant recently met Prime Minister Modi. We are sure that he would have mentioned this strongly to the PM.
The Goa Chief Minister met the Prime Minister last fortnight in Delhi. If he took up important issues concerning Goa, he is sure to have raised the issue of the Major Ports Bill with Prime Minister Modi. And Goans are waiting for him to tell them what he said to the Prime Minister and what the Prime Minister told him.
Is there a possibility of delinking Goa from this version of the Bill, keeping in mind Goa’s unique ecology, its size and its eco-sensitive environment? The other ports are mainly in big cities and urban centres where the unique traditional issues of Goa are not there.
The CM has also spoken to the MOS Shipping Shripad Naik. Will Goans see their land saved now? They are hoping.
The TCP Minister in the Assembly said that the State government has written to the Minister for Shipping in June 2021, four months after the bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha expressing Goa’s concerns. He also said that the Chief Minister has raised this with the Minister of State for Shipping who now happens to be Shripad Naik.
Finally, a Bill that will leave Goa with no say, no control, no power over its land was being passed and our MP kept quiet.
But after all this, Francisco Sardinha needs to tell Goans why he has failed to say a single word on the Bill. A man in whose presence this happened could have at least risen up to speak on the Bill or protest against it in Parliament if this was passed without discussion. The biggest platform in this country for the people to have its voice heard, the Parliament, was not used by the MP chosen to do it.
The man who took it up was the Navelim MLA Luizinho Faleiro
It is important to know that in Congress, while everyone including its MP kept quiet and had nothing to say, it is Luizinho Faleiro who has understood the full impact that the Bill will have. He has realised the disaster for Goa and he is the one who has asked the questions that Sardinha and the rest of the Congress should have asked. If Faleiro had not asked those direct questions the clear admission of the government that the Ports Bill will indeed crush Goa’s control and go against the very concept of federalism where the States have unique powers to make laws for its people, would not have come.
