TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: Blocked beach accesses in the tourist village of Cavelossim have come back to haunt the village panchayat, with villagers crying foul over the closure of some of these by hotels.
While the issue had taken centre stage at two successive gram sabha meetings over the blockage of access to two-three beach points, the ground reality remains unchanged. The Cavelossim panchayat has so far not obtained legal opinion on the issue. And in the absence of legal opinion, the controversy rages in the village whether starred hotels are required to open the access at the time of construction or at the time of approval of the construction plan by the panchayat body.
Sarpanch Viola D’Costa says that one of the starred hotels has cleaned up the access to the beach, but locals says just a cleanup is not enough and the way should be made accessible for the public visiting the beach. A villager Cruz Cardozo said that two hotels have blocked access to the beach for want of action by the village panchayat despite the fact that the body has approved the construction plan. “Villagers are surprised why the panchayat is going slow in opening the blocked beach accesses when the construction plan of the starred hotels stands approved,” he said. “Tomorrow, the hotels may postpone construction of the hotels by few more years on one pretext or the other. For how many years should the villagers wait to get the beach accesses opened,” he wondered.
Earlier this month, the Cavelossim Villagers Forum urged the village sarpanch to fix inspection of a road and set back area, claiming that a starred resort had encroached by carrying out construction in the setback area and approved road area.
When asked to throw light on the blocked beach access, the Cavelossim sarpanch said the panchayat would soon seek legal opinion from the panchayat lawyer on the matter. Deputy Sarpanch Larazinho Miranda said the panchayat will seek legal opinion, besides approaching the Director of Panchayats how to go about the matter, before initiating action. “I fully agree that the beach access should be thrown open to the public once the plan
is okayed by the panchayat,” he said.
