Colmorod residents complain of mushrooming shanties

MARGAO, MAY 7
Illegal hutments have raised its ugly head in Chief Minister Digambar Kamat’s constituency once again.
Local residents of Colmorod have complained of mushrooming hutments and scrap yards in the locality along the road leading to the Konkan Railway station from the Navelim Church.
Co-incidentally, the illegal shanties have come up in the ward represented by the First Citizen of Margao, Savio Coutinho, who has assured the agitated locals that the Civic body would crack a whip against the illegalities.
Coutinho admitted that the hutments, inhabited by the migrants is posing a nuisance and a menace for the local populace in the absence of any sanitary facilities, besides anti-social activities. “Locals fear to use the road because of the migrants and the anti-social activities. There’s even a need to ascertain the antecedents of the people inhabiting shanties”, Coutinho added.
Locals have raised apprehensions that the existing scrap yard at the site is getting expanded since the time the authorities had razed the two scrap yards along the Nuvem-Arlem stretch of the Eastern bypass. They wondered how hutments can be allowed on low-lying Communidade land when the land in question is cultivable land.
Incidentally, the Margao Municipal Council had razed down the illegal structures around a year ago, but if the Municipal Chairperson is to be believed, the shanties resurfaced within days, indicating the helplessness of the Civic chief and the patronage the shanties receive from the powers that be.
Replying to a question, he said the Civic body will initiate action against the shanties, but also want other agencies, including the Collectorate and police to coordinate and get rid of the nuisance. “It is indeed sad that Goans are responsible for the nuisance for letting the communidade land for the erection of the shanties”, he added.
Incidentally, former Chief Minister, Pratapsing Rane, who had visited the Commercial Capital in 2005 had warned the city’s powers that be and the authorities over the growing slums in the city and the need to crack a whip against encroachments on government and communidade land, but in vain.