TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The Comunidade Commission is hopeful of rejuvenating the fallow lands belonging to various comunidades even as resources of the village communities are drying up.
Speaking to Herald, Commission member, Tulio de Souza said that within six month timeframe, they seek to help in streamlining the functioning of the comunidades in the State.
“We wish to look at the issue of fallow lands of comunidades. There are many comunidade tenants who are holding on to the land, in the wake of the Land Tenancy Act, but are leaving the lands fallow. We want to very seriously submit to the High Court that certain powers be given to the comunidades to cultivate fallow lands in order that these lands can be brought back into the scope of agriculture,” de Souza said.
He however hastened to say that he was not against those who are cultivating the lands, but that it was necessary that since on account of the Tenancy Act the comunidade revenue had dried up, the fields needed to be rejuvenated.
Most of the lands belonging to the comunidades are either fields or orchard lands.
The High Court mandate was to look into the functioning of the comunidades, the non functioning comunidades, fixing the responsibility and accountability for the comunidades and any other issues.
However, despite being notified only in April 5 the Comunidade Commission has held just one preliminary meeting on September 4. The government had announced the constitution of the commission, based on directions of the High Court way back in February this year.
The commission has also to look into the functioning and the organization of the administration offices of comunidades and recommend means for their functioning and fix accountability for irregular acts.
“We should be meeting again this month to draw up a road map for the next six months to see how we can go about having a mechanism to fix responsibility,” he said.
The plan according to de Souza will involve hearing all the 221 comunidades and those who have grievances against some comunidades office bearers.
“Over the years comunidades have lost valuable assets. We will try to see how many years of irregularities can we looked into,” he added.
The commission has another six months to finish its work and has already lost time given its one year tenure.
