VASCO: General Secretary of Goenchea Ramponnkarancho Ekvott (GRE) Olencio Simoes on Wednesday expressed disappointment against Minister of Panchayat, Mauvin Godinho for supporting a doubling of the railway track from Hospet to Vasco.
In a press release issued by Goenchea Raponnkarancho Ekvott, it mentioned that Godinho is pretending to neglect the issue even after knowing the fact that doubling of track will completely affect the people of Cansaulim, Arossim, Velsao, Pale and Issorsim, who has already given their land for free at the time of Portuguese regime in 1878 to construct metre-gauge railway for connectivity of the port at Mormugao Port Trust (MPT), Vasco to Sanvordem.
GRE vice president and former panch of Velsao, Custodio Camilo Souza has requested the minister to be more sensitive towards the electorate rather than being political as the landowners of Cansaulim, Arossim, Velsao, Pale and Issorsim has not rejected the procurement of their land and also the Velsao, Pale, Issorsim and Cansaulim-Arossim-Cuelim has passed resolution against doubling of track as the coal train which passes through the village transports per minute 23 tonne which is 3,800-tonne of coal per train and nine such trains of coal passes through every day.
“This has created devastation to our villages and people. If the track is doubled more destruction will cause to our ancestral houses, properties, coconut plantation and farmers etc as already the yield of the crop has fallen because of coal dust pollution and has adversely affected the lives of people living along the track,” said Souza.
GRE wanted to draw attention of the minister that the MPT port is a private port which is handled by Adani Ports and SEZ Limited, Jindal South West Port Ltd and Vedanta as the Central government has already given autonomy in 2016 to the port by replacing the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963, which allows them to lease out the remaining water spread area of 76,850 acres and land area of 533.48 acres to anyone they wish.
“If the minister was vigilant enough and if he had attended the public meeting at Tilak Maidan held on March 2017 for MPT’s three major port expansion plan he would have clearly known why the double railway line is required from Hospet to Vasco.
“As the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prepared by Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) clearly mentioned the second railway line is required for transportation of coal at steel plants at Bellary and for new plant which ought to be set up in the vicinity and due to this MPT plans to increase the berths handling capacity so that it can enhance the coal handling from 12 to 50 million tonnes per annum,” Olencio stated.
Further, GRE has reminded Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant to follow the footstep of late Manohar Parrikar. We are confident that Mauvin Godinho will support the villagers and will not enforce forceful land acquisition as this will be the violation of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
