Navelim villagers come out in protest of Western Bypass road work

Navelim MLA and Minister Avertano Furtado has stood by the people and has rejected the work of the Western Bypass passing through Navelim. The people of Navelim have claimed that the road work is illegal and will divide villages once it has been constructed. Navelkaars went to the work site of the bypass road in Shirvodem on Thursday and demanded that the work stops. The Sarpanch of Navelim village, Frank Fernandes and around 100 persons were present at the protest.

The villagers had a public meeting in Navelim to discuss the issues of the Western Bypass road work. The gathering unanimously decided not to allow such development in the village and to settle with the existing road. The MLA of Navelim has decided to stand with the peoples’ demand. “In the meeting, people have said that they do not want the highway to pass through our village by land filling and I respect the views of the people,” said Furtado.

“People are also demanding that they need a flyover because the villages will drown in the rains if there is a lot of landfill on the road. It is left to be seen what the Chief Minister regarding this issue,” Furtado explained.

Activist Siddharth Karapurkar who was at the meeting said, “This road is being built for Mopa and we won’t allow it to happen. The Government is trying to allot the work before the elections and to attract bidders for Mopa, the Government is forcing the National Highway upon the people.” 

“The road which was initially planned to be 20 meters is now proposed to be 80 meters which is causing at least 8 families their homes. Additionally, several people are losing their land that they had purchased on account of this. We do not want a road which will disturb the well being of the village,” said one of the villagers of Navelim.

“The road will divide the Navelim constituency into half and displace several people from their access to other areas. Nobody from the village is in favour of this road,” Siddharth mentioned.

Meanwhile, police visited the protest site and told the people that they will check on all the merits of the work and will decided their further course of action accordingly.