Team Herald
PANJIM: Accusing successive governments of only making promises, but doing nothing to protect the Old Goa heritage sites, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has said that the politicians who vie for places of honour at the Old Goa feast have a duty to inform the people when the “degradation” of the UNESCO recognised world heritage site would stop.
“Successive governments have only paid lip service to the cause of protection of the site. The BJP has no intention of doing anything to preserve the heritage character of the place. Whether it was the import from BJP Digambar Kamat or the BJP’s Manohar Parrikar, all that has been heard of, is false assurances, while massive construction activity permitted all around Old Goa is leading to complete destruction of the heritage zone, and posing a threat the UNESCO recognise world heritage site,” AAP convenor Elvis Gomes said.
He said that an AAP team had observed garbage menace in the village and unregulated vendors were let loose to create an unruly situation for visitors.
Gomes said that greedy politicians in power had ignored the sentiments of the people and gone ahead with approvals to buildings, which were proliferating at a scale that was posing serious threat to the heritage status of the area.
Gomes came down heavily on statutory bodies such as the Archaeological Survey of India too for failing to protect the zone.
