Team Herald
MAPUSA: Revolutionary Goans on Tuesday has condemned the announcement made by the Chairman of Goa Housing Board, Subhash Shirodkar with regards to the concrete colonies for slum dwellers across Goa.
In a press release, the group has alleged that the MLA’s decision yet again forces them to question the current government’s intentions towards protecting Goa’s identity.
“The government instead of cracking down on illegal encroachments is promising them a piece of our land. Instead of giving them concretised structure, demolish the illegal slums and those living illegally must be sent back, it alleged.
Revolutionary Goans founder Manoj Parab said every Goan knows the slum areas festering in Goa are mostly the encroached State land.
“It belongs to us yet over the period we have seen the influx of migrants overtaking our land. The authorities also choose to turn a blind eye. Revolutionary Goans strongly objects to such an announcement because we believe that this will cause demographic imbalance, increase crimes in Goa, overburden revenue of the state and ruin our culture,” Parab cautioned.
“While in the records we still maintain around 16 lakh population, the fact is illegal migrants those who live in Goa are out of Census records. According to the 2011 Census, Goa’s slum population living in Ponda, Margao and the biggest slum area in Mormugao account close to 50,000 people. The report leaves out the numbers of Indiranagar slum cluster in Chimbel. Just imagine the timeframe between 2011- 2019,” he added.
Revolutionary Goans demands that the Government must come out with details of those unaccounted numbers. “It is an open secret that a lot of these migrants carry dual voter ID cards and cater to vote bank of many MLAs in Goa. This dangerous practice has been carried out for many years. Now if we build concrete structures in the existing slums, we Goans will lose our land forever,” it warned.
The group has questioned the intention to provide migrants permanent residence in our state. Records prove over 18% spike in crime rates just in South Goa. This involves rape, extortion, robberies and attacks on shop owners. The track record proves most of them are residents of other States, illegally living in Goa
“Revolutionary Goans has time and again been questioning the Government on the migrant population. In our view, the government is protecting their interest by creating a vote bank. How is it acceptable for migrants to obtain Government schemes that were created to cater us, the original people of this state,” he questioned.
