PANJIM: The Comunidade of Merces has demanded scrapping of draft rules and notification for amendment of Goa Land Revenue (Conversion of Use of Land and Non-Agricultural Assessment) and to declare it inapplicable to the Comunidade villages of Goa.
In its objections filed to the Secretary (Revenue), the Comunidade of Merces Attorney Jose Carmin Joao has demanded that the Code of Comunidade be given its rightful status as the law of the land for the Comunidade villages and all British colonial laws illegally imposed for the past 60 years be declared null and void abinitio for these villages.
Joao said that these draft rules will not only allow further destruction of village lands in contravention of Gaonkari laws, codified as the Code of Comunidade, but more fundamentally, the Goa Land Revenue Code, 1968 and Goa Land Revenue Rules cannot be enforced upon the Gaonkari villages of Goa including Morombi-o-Pequeno, Merces Comunidade village.
He said that unplanned and arbitrary conversion of land use by illegal, forced imposition of Land Revenue Code, 1968 on the Gaonkari villages of Goa is the primary reason for the destruction of Goa’s environment and sustainable economies, breakdown of communities and threat to the survival of future generations.
Speculative interests driven by greed are blindly seeking further conversions of land use completely against the law of land, which is the biggest threat to Goa today. It is therefore essential, especially in view of the climate crisis and past destruction of environment, that the ‘illegal imposition’ of imperial laws such as the Goa Land Revenue Code, 1968 on the Comunidade villages of Goa be stopped, and the Code of Comunidades be recognized and reinstated as the Law of the Land.
“Our Gaonkari Lands are reserved by law only for traditional agricultural uses, for individual housing for Gaonkars in deserving cases and for local education and health facilities and the proposition of conversion of these lands for any other uses is unlawful and untenable,” said Joao.
