MARGAO: Terming the Goa government’s purported request to the Centre to discard the new Land Acquisition Act as anti-Goan, farmers and activists on Tuesday appealed to Goans to keep aside their differences and unite to reverse this anti-people decision and to ask the Centre to retain all the provisions of the new law without any exception.
They demanded to know how the Goa government can write to the Centre to discard the new Act without any public debate on the matter.
Addressing the media, activist Abhijit Prabhudesai said the citizens of Goa have been caught totally unawares, and are shocked beyond belief, by the Parrikar government’s secretive decision (revealed only through newspaper articles published last week) to ask the centre to scrap the new land acquisition laws.
He reminded that farmers and other citizens fought hard and long to scrap the British colonial laws, which allowed the monarchy to snatch lands of individuals and communities without any consultation, thereby displacing them into economic refugees. “In Goa, we too fought against the draconian British laws for years, as thousands of Goan farming families were ruined and displaced by forced acquisition of their farm lands and community lands, which were granted to industries, or used for dubious infrastructure projects. As a result of our struggles, the past government was forced to concede the legitimate demands of the citizens by enacting a new acquisition law, to which all political parties gave support”, he added.
Explaining further, Abhijit said if the Goa government has its way then all Goan farmers and land owners will once again be exposed to arbitrary executive decisions to rob them of their lands by paying them a pittance, thereby accelerating the displacement of Goans, and the end of Goan culture and identity.
He said that Goa was already reeling under severe loss of water and food security due to forced acquisitions of fertile lands and plateaus for corporations, private parties and badly planned infrastructure.
