MAPUSA: Comunidade de Moira have raised objections to the proposed Amendment to Goa Land Development & Building Construction (Amendment) Regulation, 2022 and threatened to take legal steps along with 223 other Comunidade if the Department of Town and Country Planning (TCP) fails to withdraw the proposed amendments.
Addressing media on Monday, the President of the Comunidade de Moira Rui Da Gama said, “We have made a letter to Chief Town Planner with our objection to proposed Amendment to Goa Land Development & Building Construction (Amendment) Regulation, 2022 after the Comunidade passed a resolution strongly opposing the proposed amendments which affect land holdings of Comunidade of Moira.”
In the letter to CTP, the President stated that Comunidade are the absolute owners in possession of the whole village of Moira as per the Goa Government Official Gazette Series I NO.16 dated July 21, 2016, and that Comunidades are owners of the land and that Government cannot compel them to part with their Land.
“We are governed by the Code of Comunidades which is a law by itself, recognized by the Central and State governments. Hence, TCP has no right to neither bypass the Code of Comunidades nor contradict other laws, with the proposed amendments. At the most TCP should have taken permission from Comunidade approved by an absolute majority of the ethnic co-owner ganvkaris of Comunidade of Moira,” Gama stated.
Comunidade de Moira has also objected to the increase of floor area ratio (FAR) to construct high-rise buildings, complexes, and habitats, which will destroy the identity and culture of the ethnic co-owner ganvkaris of the Comunidade of Moira, as well as the settlers who have been allotted land for residential and agricultural purposes by the Comunidade.
They have also strongly opposed the legalisation of any unauthorised illegal constructions in properties/ land holdings of Comunidade of Moira.