CRZ activists chide CM for soft corner to illegal structures in MMC
HERALD CORRESPONDENT
CANACONA, DEC 3
Chief Minister Digambar Kamat’s alleged soft approach to illegal structures within Margao Municipal Council has evoked sharp reaction from CRZ activists in Canacona.
“The chief minister is primarily hell-bent on protecting the vote bank in his home constituency by advocating the need to regularize illegal structures on the pretext of raising municipal revenue,” fumed Khola Bachao Abhiyan President Precopio Fernandes.
Reacting to reports in the media, Fernandes alleged that “the chief minister can hardly care for filling-up the coffers of a local body, but everyone knows that he is more interested to protect the migrant community which he is banking on for votes in future hustings.”
“Who do you think he helps by allotting house numbers to a series of illegal structures in Margao? Niz-Goenkars or locals at the most don’t need this, except for those hordes of migrants that may need such gestures from the chief minister there,” stated Fernandes.
Narrating how the same chief minister failed to come to the rescue of traditional coastal residents for so long, Fernandes said: “After CRZ demolitions has slowed down a bit in recent time, now the coastal people are forced to go into another nightmare of a company circular, which reportedly claims its stake on coastal residential areas of 58 yards from the high-tide line towards land in Khola. But the chief minister has so far never uttered a word against that company.”
According to Fernandes, Khola Panchayat has received the company circular, which states that 58 yards from HT line towards land belongs to that company and in the recent gram sabha, panchayat officials have been asked to take legal opinion.
“Now, it is again shocking to learn that chief minister immediately reacts when question of migrants in some or either forms arises, like the illegally staying migrants who were once served with eviction notice by railway authorities at Margao, but unfortunately fails to even respond when similar things befall on niz-goenkars,” he said.
