Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Michael Lobo on Wednesday grilled Tourism minister Dilip Parulekar over non-utilization of acquired land for tourism projects, and charged the previous Congress government of returning over 17,000 sqmtrs of land to former Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes.
Parulekar, however, clarified that the BJP-led government in its first cabinet meeting in 2012 under Manohar Parrikar resolved to take back the land from the former MLA and 17,661 sq mtrs of land has been taken back by the Tourism department.
As question hour begin, Lobo pointed out that over lakhs of sq mtrs of land have been acquired by successive governments for tourism projects for last 30-40 years and have remained unutilized. “In many case there have been encroachment, while some people have approached Court demanding that their land be handed over back to them,” MLA said.
“The Tourism department is on record to state that a difficulty in the land acquisition process is a major hindrance for creating tourism infrastructure along the beach belts,” he said adding ‘all the acquired land should be put to public use for creating basic infrastructure’.
Replying to the same, the Minister admitted that huge amount of land is in the department’s possession, acquired for over three to four decades. He said that the high-powered monitoring committee under the Chief Minister is working on the proposals wherein the leading hotel owners from the tourism belt would be asked to fund for CSR activities.
“The funds would be either deposited with tourism department or Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC),” Parulekar said.
Minister said that government appointed consultants has already drafted detailed project reports (DPRs) in case of all the tourism areas for development. “I assure the House that before the end of our tenure, the infrastructure facilities along all the beaches across State would be ready,” he said.
