MAPUSA: Former Sarpanch and Congressman Joseph Sequeira on Thursday requested the State government to de-notify the urban status of Calangute village. “Urbanization means destruction and taking concretization to next level. Urbanization means increasing the FAR to 200 to 300, increasing taxes, more outsiders taking over and other,” said Sequeira.
Sequeira claimed that ‘structures have come up in fields with 80 per cent FAR, 100 per cent FAR is given to builders for construction on hills and others’ which is start of urbanization.
“This notification is surprise to the people of Calangute who are kept in dark while taking advantage of the COVID situation. Several projects are underway with blessings of the local MLA and panchayat”, Sequeira said.
Urbanization will lead to Calangute losing its identity as Village and will have negative impact on social, cultural and traditional environment of the village, claimed Sequeira.
Sequeira further said that more 30 to 40 per cent people from outside will enter Calangute, have construction, and sell that again to outsiders. “It is the being. Notifying Calangute as urban will not change its status as village but this a big lie and they should stop fooling people. The elected representatives should come very clear under the provision of law”, Sequeira said.
“I feel the present Calangute village panchayat members do not know what urbanization is. If they knew they would have called for gram sabha and put this issue before the General public to decide. Eighteen years back when same issue was raised, the then panchayat headed by me had fought and retain the status of calangute as village,” Sequeira said.
Commenting on the census, Sequeira asked whether the government have carried out census survey before taking this decision since the last census survey was done in 2011 or they fooling the people just because they have power in their hands. “I request the government to de-notify the urban status of Calangute or else we will have to act,” he said.
“Changing the status from village to urban will have adverse effect on charter tourism flights; we will lose the prospect of growth in tourism since Tourists come here to explore the nature and not the concretization. So called visionary leader should retain Calangute its status as village. we strongly object notifying Calangute as urban since this is not in interest of the General public but for benefit of the elected representatives”, Sequeira added.
Sequeira asked the Calangute village panchayat to take the public into confidence before taking any decision.
