Team Herald
PANJIM: The State Cabinet on Monday deferred a proposal to approve the Integrated Resort Development project consisting of casinos, entertainment park, multiplexes, etc at Dhargalim following strong opposition by Deputy Chief Minister Babu Ajgaonkar.
After the cabinet meeting, Ajgaonkar said that he opposed the Integrated Resort Development at Dhargalim, which was earlier cleared by the Goa Investment Promotion and Facilitation Board. He said that villagers of Dhargalim are opposed to the setting up of Integrated Resort Development, which comprises three hotels, slot casinos machines, a convention centre, multiplexes, water parks, etc.
“Villagers of Dhargalim are opposed to entertainment city where they will be land casinos and give rise to gambling activities. It will destroy the village culture and government should not force such projects on them. I am totally with the villagers,” he said.
Ajgaonkar said that it was `Table agenda’ for the Cabinet wherein no Minister had time to prepare for discussion. At least 14 Table agendas were brought before the cabinet and most of them were approved without discussion, he said, adding that he told the Chief Secretary to stop the trend of bringing `Table agenda’ in the cabinet meeting.
Stating that he will not allow destruction of the village by bringing anti-people projects at Dhargalim, Ajgaonkar said that all his cabinet colleagues were in his favour and nobody spoke in favour of the project.
According to Ajgaonkar, when the project was cleared by the Goa Investment and Facilitation Board, he had spoken to the Chief Minister and expressed his opposition to it. But the Chief Minister feigned ignorance, he said.
The Deputy Chief Minister said that he always supported projects like Mopa Greenfield airport, Cricket stadium having 35,000 seating capacity, AYUSH Hospital and other infrastructure projects in the constituency but will not allow anti-people projects which will promote gambling activities and destroy village culture.
