WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2024
Team Herald
VASCO: NGO Goencho Ekvott on Sunday alleged that the BJP government was ‘most insensitive’ as far as finalising the award to the land acquisition for the railway double tracking works.
Goencho Ekvott President Orville Dourado said that when Goans across the globe were celebrating the feast St Francis Xavier, the insensitive government machinery published a 12-page land award notification for the land acquisition for the proposed Special Railway Project (Hospet-Hubli-Tinaighat-Vasco da Gama doubling), which had commenced with the issue of the notification in the Official Gazette of India dated February 17, 2020.
Dourado said that as many as 2,719 objections were filed through a raging COVID-19 pandemic, but the competent authority deepened only 66 of these as valid, over 80 per cent of which were filed through the efforts of Goencho Ekvott.
While rejecting the objections of the other 2,653 persons/institutions, with the excuse that the ‘competent authority’ had the mandate only for land acquisition, while the other important aspects to a quality life like the consequences of rakes speeding in excess of 100-120 kmph that is bound to cause collateral damage in the form of irreversible damage to existing settlements along the route, dust and noise pollution, degradation of underground water resources, etc has been overlooked.
According to Dourado, the special projects are time bound and the land acquisition process should have been completed within a year but it was over 33 months that the competent authority is conducting its insensitive process.
