It’s high time we at least, think about this River Sal they call it now inland water No-88.
My only request to the government is to spare this river which has fed lots of stomachs of the people living on the banks of this river. We do sustainable dredging but dredging not to dissolve the livelihoods of the people. This river is not for tourism or any maritime movement purpose but for livelihood. We get fresh fish for what our Assolna is famous for or else in coming days we will not see fresh fish in Assolna but the Karwar fish sold in the name of Assolna river fish. Let this river stay for peaceful calmness.
when it comes to feeding stomach, this river knows best to...in our young days I remember suddenly we use to get news shell fish (Tisreo) at this part of river or oysters (Kalvam) found at this part of river and the list goes on of the blessings this river gave.
Come the rainy season and the red waters of the mountains beside fill the water, and in that lifts the fishing activity. Be it the prawns hatchets of traditional fishing stakes and mullets (Shevte) catching in the river.
Lately some small scale tourism activities have been started in the river which includes boat rides for tourist and small parties of river cruises. These boats move along with the traditional fishermen, which causes a bit of disturbance in fishing with nets. As this is being done on a small scale, our fishermen have tolerated and have adjusted to these disturbances. My view is let this be until this, we do not want any harsher disturbances to disturb the ecosystem. Let the tourism stay until the small boats moving around with the fishermen’s and not with high scale maritime activities of fish and game. The river is marked as MPT property on the CZMP plan. Our question is why?
Is it to gain control on the river in the name of economic growth. I must say River Sal is not the place to think of development on national basis. This river is in itself a economy for the people leaving on the banks of the river.
Sometimes I feel our government is poor and does not have budget to do sustainable dredging of the river, so include the river as inland waterways of India so that budget can flow through the Sagarmala project to dredge it. We have failed to realise the dire consequences of handing this river to Central government.
Today as I write this down, my small community guys do not know what the consequences will be if we keep quite. That’s why there is fewer crowd when asked to attend. They are busy fishing like true Goemkars keeping faith on anyone. They fail to realise the hidden snakes of our land who kept quiet when this river was sanctioned for nationalisation. A request to the Government of Goa, denotify this river, bring it under the government of Goa. Let us do sustainable dredging within the budget of our State, so that no one cheats us in the framing words of agreements. Let Goa be in the hands of us Goans. My only voice ...denotify this River...let it be called River Sal and not NW-88.