Team Herald
PANJIM: “Goa being a very small State in size and ‘land’ being scare especially agricultural land, the provisions of the Goa Land Use (Regulation) Act needs to enforced with all sincerity, and if any sort of ‘modus operandi’ is allowed to be used clandestinely to subvert the provisions of the Act and also its perpetrators are allowed to go scot free, there is reasonable apprehension that not a single agricultural land will be left in the State of Goa, in the near future.”
These are excerpts from the ‘Fact Finding Report’, pertaining to land at Tiracol village in Pernem taluka in connection with issues raised in the PIL before the HC of Bombay at Goa. The report has clearly exposed the environmental degradation being undertaken by the BJP-led government in the State.
The report points out that there is enough evidence to say there were agricultural activities underway in the village, which has been debated by the promoters and the government.
“One can reasonably observe that the old records maintained under the Manual Form I & XIV, indicated entries of certain types of crops grown in the area during a particular period and the survey of which was carried out by the Talathis’ under the supervision of the Office of the Mamlatdar,” says the report, copy of which is in possession of Herald.
“Further the entries (crop) in the First Survey Report (Form No III) conducted post-liberation by the then Land Survey Department are also reinforced and corroborated by the entries in the Soil Classification (SLT) Book/Forms maintained by the DSLR and all these three independent survey mechanisms evidently points out that there were indeed crops grown in parts of that area like bhaat, cashew, nachane, udit & kudit etc. in the past,” the report says.
The report also points out to the crop compensation paid to farmers in 2009, which proves agriculture did exist in the village.
On whether the land was tenanted or not, the report says it is just incomprehensible to believe that it is a mere co-incidence that, only after the property in question was sold by the ‘Colopos’ or Khalaps to Leading Hotel Pvt Ltd in parts from the year November 2007 onwards, that some of the persons who were earlier claiming to be tenants or even declared so have suddenly realised that the entries in the record of rights were erroneous.
“One can understand one or two cases but not the whole village and that too not almost at the same time. There is definitely something more than what meets the eye,” the Jacques report says.
