Team Herald
PANJIM: Turning a deaf ear to the strong local support for keeping the designated 108 villages within the eco-sensitive areas (ESA), the BJP government has recommended to the visiting expert committee that 21 villages or more should be dropped from that list.
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If this is approved, the villages will lose the environmental protection they have due to their inclusion in the ESA and will be thrown open for real estate development and mining, fear green crusaders.
“We are positive that the Central expert committee visiting the State will fulfil the demand of the State government to drop 21 villages from Western Ghat ESA list. The expert committee that is presently doing the inspection of these villages gave us a patient hearing,” said CM Sawant, on Thursday.
Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira also held a meeting with the expert committee and said: “We have put up our case before the expert committee to drop 21 villages and we are seeking the removal of more villages. The committee will go back to Delhi and take a call. The CM has also placed Goa’s case before Union Minister for Environment (Bhupender Yadav).”
The twin announcements have rung alarm bells for eco-warriors, who stress that the government should not deviate from the draft notification issued by the MoEF&CC to include 108 villages, including 64 from North Goa, as ESAs.
Environmentalist Rajendra Kerkar said, “Removing 21 villages from the ESA list will lead to water scarcity and worsen the effect of climate change. This can be mitigated only by providing protection to forested areas. Loliem and Poinguinim villagers have requested for the inclusion of their villages in the ESA list. But vested political interests want to bring as much areas as possible under concrete structures.”
Environmentalist Ramesh Gauns questioned the scientific basis for excluding the villages. “What are the criteria for excluding these 21 villages from ESA? If this is not done randomly, how did the government start with a list of 60 villages and has now come down to 21? Let the people of Goa know the reasons. Did an opinion poll of villagers take place? The CM is succumbing to his minister’s pressure to drop these 21 villages because there are ore deposits there and these villages will be sold to big lobbies.”
Loliem-Polem Village Panchayat Biodiversity Committee chairman Dattaprasad Prabhugaonkar said, “We had submitted our suggestions to the MoEF&CC seeking to retain our villages in the ESA list. We don’t want it to be excluded, because our areas have lot of khazan lands and plateaus, and some lobbies are attempting to build hotels in the village. Maximum land is also private forests and some were attempting to convert it into settlement.”
Villagers of Poinguinim chairman Pradeep Mokhadkar said that their village also wants to stay within the ambit of the ESA. “We had made similar requests to the MoEF&CC back in 2017 and 2022 in response to earlier notifications. We had also passed a resolution to retain our village in the Western Ghat ESA. If notified as ESA, there will no restriction in ownership charge of property and no restriction on repair or extension or renovation of existing residential houses. But it will put an end to assault from real estate speculation, luxury tourism and other forms of destruction.”
