Team Herald
MARGAO: Against the backdrop of the announcement made by PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral about the Central government sanctioning highway projects across Goa at a cost of Rs 2,229 crore, anti-coal activists have questioned whether the highway expansion is meant to facilitate and smoothen inter-state coal transport.
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“These highway expansion plans are certainly connected to the central government’s Bharatmala project to connect these highways to the major port in Goa, Mormugao Port Authority (MPA) and Maharashtra’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) to facilitate coal transportation,” said Olencio Simoes, Goenchea Ramponkar Ekvott’s (GRE) general secretary.
“It appears that the primary duty of the PWD minister is to create these corridors to facilitate the transportation of coal from MPA to Northern Karnataka where the steel mills are located in line with the Sagarmala plan. One can already see how the flyovers linking MPA through Mormugao taluka are extensively used for coal transportation and where the locals led by Xencor Polgi are already opposing the same,” said Orville Dourado Rodrigues, Goencho Ekvott’s (GE) founder.
