Team Herald
VASCO: The Goenchea Ramponkarancho Ekvott (GRE) on Tuesday demanded that the Goa government should immediately intervene and write to the central government as well as the Ministry of Shipping to roll back the proposal of providing autonomy to major ports including Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) failing which GRE would be compelled to kick start a revolt against government.
Addressing a press conference after the General Body meeting of GRE, held at Cortalim Church Hall, GRE General Secretary Olencio Simoes slammed the Central government and the Ministry of Shipping for attempting to provide autonomy to top 12 major ports including Mormugao Port Trust (MPT).
“The decision to replace the existing Major Port Trust Act, 1963 with Central Port Authorities Act 2016 is against the fishermen community as the new Act will empower port authorities to blatantly lease out land to big corporate houses.”
He accused Nitin Gadkari of seeming to act “like an agent of the port mafias led by Adani and Jindal. Autonomy will give full power to the Board of Port Authorities to enter into contracts, plan and develop the Port, fix tariffs etc, as per their wishes. This is very similar to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) wherein the government and the people will have no say whatsoever with what MPT does.”
He also accused the MPT of bullying the people of Goa for way too long by illegally capturing land. “If the 2016 Act comes into force, the coastline from Betul to Dona Paula will belong to MPT in toto, which means the fishermen whose livelihood depends on the coast will be forced to give up their occupation,” he added.
GRE President Agnelo Rodriguese said, “The BJP government in the State and Centre are all out to destroy the fishermen of Goa and India. The BJP is not only out to provide autonomy to these ports, but is also out to sell the inland rivers to agents of ecological and environmental destruction.”
“We demand that the government immediately roll back the provision of providing autonomy to these ports and nationalisation of rivers, or else the State should be ready to face the wrath of the common man,” he warned
Meanwhile, the general body of GRE elected its new committee. Incumbent President Agnelo Rodrigues has been re-elected as president, while Vasant Gopi Naik has been elected as vice president. Similarly, Olencio Simoes has been re-elected as general secretary, Mercy D’Mello as secretary and Caji D’Mello as treasurer.
