The commercial capital Margao and its neighboring constituencies of Navelim and Curtorim has always attracted migrants and their role in vote bank politics. Some blame it on the old railway station which brought in people from other states, some on the market in town and others on the trading activity that needed work force. Migrants however have been a part of this city since liberation.
Former Union Labour Minister Eduardo Faleiro remembers when migrants came into Margao city with the early construction boom soon after independence and how former MLA of Margao Babu Naik housed some of these on the eastern side of the Margao Hill or better known as Monte and now Moti Dongor, a bastion or a rather a votebank for the current MLA Digambar Kamat.
Another such votebank is shanties at Davorlim housing Board and subsequent governments and MLAs ranging from Luizinho Faleiro, Avertano Furtado, Reginaldo Lourenco, Francisco Sardinha have consistently worked to ensure this area of Housing Board changes at every delimitation from Navelim to Curtorim constituency and vice versa or from the panchayat of Davorlim Housing Board to the municipal wards of Margao Municipality only because of the number of votes it carries.
“The small EWS land dwellings are now multi storey homes and building on rent and a hub of illegal construction. These are bigger illegalities by migrants than the alleged illegalities of the builder lobby. This is however ignored and we get targeted for construction irregularities,” explains noted builder Datta Naik while speaking to us on the menace of migrants in Housing Board Dwellings.
Behind Cine Lata shanties migrant Ashwani Dulaki recalls her father and a few others were allotted these areas to erect a small shanty while her parents worked as daily wage workers for over 30 years doing odd jobs as municipal workers but over the years many people have rented out their slums. Their need for toilets and sanitation have been ignored and slowly over the years it has become a eye sore. She explains that though her family and the 60 odd families in that locality provide domestic help to homes across Margao and Navelim nobody recognizes that effort but people want them evicted without looking at their interest or needs.
Similarly the slums at Azad Fakri along the Railway station and at Moti Dongor provide domestic help and menial jobs work force to the city but the rising crime and anti-social activities arising from these slums are a bigger issue to city dwellers and the local police.
“Politicians use and throw slum dwellers. Some MLAs and councilors or panchas will come and issue water connections, light connections, give voters ids, NOC to extend or construct pukka houses LPG connections in the name of asking for votes then another group will threaten to raze down the slum or withdraw the connections and NOC’s or sops like government jobs and money to youth to celebrate festivals and that’s how slums thrive in the city,” explains Housing Board slum dweller Jaih Sheikh who took us around the area to show us the garbage, sewage and illegal construction menace in the locality. He also showed us the illegal scrapyards that thrive in the area on land that was given to Santosh Trophy winners by the government in the past.
