Flying Squad officials inspect sites at Cortalim
HERALD CORRESPONDENT
CORTALIM, JUNE 11
Members of the Flying Squad on Friday inspected a site near manos (sluice gate) where mud had been dumped.
However, Talathi S Kerkar attached to Mormugao Mamlatdar said they had not registered a case since it was only a mud dump and that no land filling had been carried out so far. Later, in the evening they inspected hill cutting site at Consua.
Kerkar said that a case had been registered for land filling at another site near R K Marbles at Pazentar in Cortalim.
According to the officials of revenue department, Mormugao, many cases of land filling and hill cutting had been registered with the most offending case being in Consua-Cortalim where in large tracks of land had been razed in haphazard manner by a contractor for the defence project.
Though belatedly, the issue was raised by the local MLA Mauvin Godinho and also taken up in the Assembly during the budget session and a site inspection along the Chief Minister Digambar Kamat was carried out recently. The Deputy Collector, Mormugao who is also head of the flying squad demanded an explanation both from the Town and Country Planning Department, and Department of Mines and Geology over the hill cutting activities.
Interestingly, while the hill cutting activities was going on in full swing for nearly two years with trucks loaded with mud making a bee line, none of the authorities including those from the revenue department made attempts to inspect whether the hill cutting was going as per the TCP plans.
Infact even after Mauvin Godinho raised the issue, authorities including the police were reluctant in initiating a strong action in the matter. While one will have to wait and watch for the final outcome from all the inquiries; what prompted the authorities in taking a serious view was perhaps the visit of the chief minister and his observation in the matter.
Last month, there were moves to restart the hill cutting with heavy machinery making its presence at the site. However, the locals along with the supporters of the MLA drove the machinery out before any further damage could be done.
