Team Herald
PANJIM: The heritage precincts of Old Goa, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 1986 and containing multiple monuments of national importance like Se Cathedral and Bom Jesus, has 54 illegal structures within
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the prohibited zone, including buildings reportedly belonging to former minister Pandurang Madkaikar and village panchayat functionaries.
This shocking fact has come to light in a survey by Tiswadi Mamlatdar Kaushik Dessai and the survey report has been submitted to the High Court of Bombay at Goa, which is hearing a PIL by John Baptista Mascarenhas of Ponda, who had approached the court for action against illegal encroachments andcommercial activities in prohibited areas around the Old Goa world heritage monuments. In an earlier order in October, the court had directed that action on illegal structures would be taken after the Mamlatdar submitted the report.
The Mamlatdar’s report proves beyond doubt what is common knowledge in Old Goa – that illegal buildings stand within prohibited areas of heritage monuments. But what has come as a surprise is the fact that the report has identified illegal structures belonging to Madkaikar, former Se Old Goa sarpanch, the Se Old Goa village panchayat and the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC).
Save Old Goa Action Committee member Glen Cabral said, “The State government has passed a notification regulated any development within the prohibited area and extending up to 200 metres of the prohibited area as notified under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. Thus, an NOC from the Archaeological Survey of India is mandatory under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2010.”
The Mamlatdar’s report noted that some of the structures are used for commercialactivities and that the Se Old Goa village panchayat was yet to act against them. However, the Se Old Goa panchayat secretary Subodh Prabhu clarified to O Heraldo that that the village panchayat had already issued show causenotices to the encroachers and ordered them to stop all commercial activities. The panchayat will file its affidavit-in-reply in the High Court during the next hearing onDecember 17.
The Old Goa Talathi and the field surveyor could notidentify eight illegal structures while conducting the survey. The Mamlatdar has written to the ConservationAssistant Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Old Goa, to verify the details of these eight structures, but there was no response from the ASI authorities, the Mamlatdar stated in his affidavit-in-reply.
