Team Herald
MAPUSA: The Bodgeshwar Shetkari Sangh has alleged that at the behest of real estate agents and builders, the government is trying to grab the lands of Mapusa farmers under the garb of Down Town Planning Scheme.
Denying that any farmer has given any written consent, Sangh has challenged the government to furnish them with the ‘willingness letters’, which, it claims, it has obtained from the farmers for developing Mapusa under the Down Town Planning Scheme.
The farmers’ organisation has also threatened to approach the court to seek justice for the farmers who would lose their fields under this scheme.
Sangh President Sanjay Barde challenged the government to produce the ‘willingness letter’ given by the farmers to carry out development in Mapusa by acquiring the fields.
“Have the farmers been taken into confidence while planning the downtown scheme for Mapusa. There is nothing shown about how much the farmers are going to get while executing such a scheme. The ‘Task Force Committee’ is saying that they have received the ‘willingness letter’ from the farmers to execute the scheme. When we asked the Task Force under the RTI to furnish the names of the farmers who have given the ‘willingness letter’, it failed to produce the details of the same,” Barde said.
“The farmers have also raised objections to additional alterations to the Mapusa ODP. They have also given suggestions to the chairman and the member secretary of the North Goa Planning and Development Authority (NGPDA) over the proposed ODP for Mapusa,” he added.
Barde further informed that in an objection letter to the NGPDA, the farmers have strongly opposed the initiative to alter Mapusa ODP and have alleged that the downtown planning scheme will only promote vested interests of real estate agents and builders.
Some of the farmers also alleged that the office of the NGPDA is supporting politicians and real estate brokers to grab their agricultural land and citied an example of a famous hotel constructed in prime agricultural fields in Mapusa with the blessings from the Chairman of NGPDA.
Barde also pointed out how open spaces were slowly disappearing in Socorro.
“A number of commercial buildings and concretized structures have come up in open spaces in the constituency of Porvorim and prime agricultural fields have been destroyed. This will be the situation of Mapusa under the downtown planning scheme where a number of fields will be destroyed and the poor farmers will lose their livelihoods,” Barde said.
The farmers have also requested the task force not to permit changes to their low lying agricultural lands at Bodgeshwar temple.
