Marcaim villagers are demanding a portion of the comunidade land after a chunk of the comunidade land was allotted to the Marcaim Industrial Estate.
Most of villagers have no land of their own. To rub salt in their wounds, around two lakh sq mts of Comunidade land has now been given to a charitable trust belonging to religious marth in Goa instead of the villagers who live in congested houses.
The locals had opposed this move in the Gram sabhas.
Following this allocation, the villagers are now demanding with the Government to provide housing Scheme for landless villagers on Comunidade land. Locals are opposed to providing village land to outside NGOs, marth or Charitable trust. The elders claim that the industrial estate is likely to acquire more comunidade land and leave them without any land for their future generations.
“We get Laadli Laxmi Scheme, Griha Adhar, Dayanand Niradhar and we are grateful to the government for providing these schemes to us, but our main demand is providing land for future generation of villagers”, said a villager.
Marcaim Village Panchayat is one of the biggest village panchayats in Ponda Taluka that falls in Marcaim Constituency. Right at the centre of village is situated the Marcaim Industrial Estate opposite the Primary Health Centre. Surrounding the Estate are seven waddas where the villagers have houses.
According to villagers for the past over 25 years, they are facing crisis of land to build houses or even to extend their residence since many of them do not have ownership rights which belong to the landlord while some fall in the comunidade land.
According to Namdev Naik, who is educated, “most of village land where villagers used to cultivate paddy, seasonal rainy crops, vegetables and used to graze the cattle, had been acquired and offered to Industrial Estate around two decades ago at cheapest rates. The villagers have now become landless.’
“Industrialist can set up industries in our land but we can’t have space to construct our own house,” he lamented. Now where will we go to find a land to construct a new house? The landowner and tenants oppose construct a new house or even extending the existing one. It is difficult to buy land as prices have skyrocketed, he added.
To add to their plight the comunidade has allotted land to a trust which already has many properties all over Goa.
“We demand with government to make provision of land or plan housing project for the poor sons of the soil who are struggling for land in their own state. If needed the government should bring necessary land reform act in the interest of locals. The local comunidade should not offer land to NGO or Religious Marth; instead landless villagers should be given preference,” said another villager
According to the Marcaim Gram sabha held on November 27, 2016, the resolution opposed the two lakh sq mts allotted land to the Charitable trust having registered office with religious Marth in Goa and hence passed resolution that the said land be returned for landless people in Marcaim who face hardship to construct houses.
Besides, the need of land for housing, it is also essential to treat garbage, have a market project, and upgrade health centres,
According to Rajesh Naik of Marcaim, the prices of land are have skyrocketed beyond reach of common man. “When it is difficult for local to get employment with good salary how will they buy plot of land elsewhere in Goa at non affordable prices? The village has the land under Oldest Gaonkari System (Now Comunidade) should be solely used for providing plots to locals at affordable conditions. Government should take steps as early as possible and the comunidade land should be only for given to locals,” said Naik.
