TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Stating that the Mayem evacuee issue is very complicated, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday said that he would not solve the issue but “provide a solution.”
“I have not said that I am solving the issue by December 19. I said I will provide a solution,” he said adding, “Solving the issue is different and providing a solution is different.”
Mayem village was declared as evacuee property after Goa’s integration into India, as the owners opted to go to Portugal. The land originally belonged to the Comunidade of Mayem, but was confiscated and later given to a family whose descendants and their heirs are today claiming the property.
The matter is pending before the Supreme Court.
“The issue is so complicated that it is not possible that the solution will be acceptable to all,” he said adding that “If the issue was so simple, why would it take 50 years to be solved?”
Arguing that the government definitely wants to solve the issue, he said that he did not think that those who are sitting there want to solve the issue.
The Maem Bhu Vimochan Nagrik Kruti Samiti are on a hunger strike in a bid to pressurise the government to keep its promise of solving the issue by December 19. A group of villagers are sitting on a chain hunger strike demanding that they be given rights to the land on which they reside and be allowed to own property that they are living on.
A case is pending before the Bombay High Court at Goa against the government for allowing new buildings and houses to illegally come up on the land.
The villagers have also been demanding that the Deputy Speaker Anant Shet resign from his post if the government does not keep up to its word.
