GAURESH SATTARKAR
Every morning, the women arrive before the sun turns cruel. Elderly included, they take their places outside the Parsekar Foods factory in Palaskat ta, Mollem, and wait — as they have, day after day, for the past nine days. It is the third time in three months that residents of this quiet village in Sanvordem constit uency have been forced onto the streets. The smell that drove them there, they say, never left. What began as a food processing unit has, according to villagers, quietly trans formed into something far more noxious — a rendering plant processing chicken waste into fertiliser, allegedly operating without valid permission since 2023. The result – a persistent, overpowering stench that residents say has disrupted daily life, suppressed appetites, alarmed parents of young children and driven villagers to the edge of their patience.
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“Every day, many women — especially elderly women — are sitting here in the heat, protesting to protect their health from the foul smell coming from the Parsekar fac tory,” said Sandya Misal, one of the protest’s leading voic es. “Villagers are demanding the complete closure of this factory.” Though the demand sounds simple, the path to achieving it has been anything but. Villagers allege that the factory’s expansion was incre mental and, at critical points, unauthorised. Permission was originally granted for a basic shed structure. A food processing business followed in 2021. Then, in 2023, resi dents claim a rendering plant began operating on the same premises — without any additional clearance. Each devel opment, they say, was accompanied by a worsening of con ditions in the surrounding neighbourhood. When the stench became unbearable, residents filed complaints with the local panchayat. Officials attempted an inspection on February 9 this year — only to be denied entry by the factory owner. The panchayat responded by revoking the factory’s licence, an act that should have re solved the matter. It did not. The factory owner approached the Additional Director of Panchayat, who placed a stay on the panchayat’s revo cation, ruling that the panchayat lacked the authority to cancel the licence. Operations continued. The next hearing, on March 17, produced no relief. And so the villagers, who had already been protesting since January, did something that is becoming increasingly common in Goa – they decid ed that if institutions would not protect them, they would protect themselves. “No one is listening to our voices,” said Varsha Zore, a Panch who has stood with the protesters throughout. “The panchayat had revoked the licence after villagers com plained, but it was of no use — the Additional Director of Panchayat later put a stay on it. What is the use of the panchayat if it does not have the power to take decisions? The factory owner did not even allow the panchayat to car ry out an inspection.” The Palaskatta agitation has followed a pattern that will be familiar to anyone tracking grassroots resistance move ments in Goa. The first protest, on January 25, saw villagers block the road to the factory. Police intervened and cleared them. Undeterred, residents returned on March 5 for a three-day agitation. Local MLA Ganesh Gaonkar assured them the issue would be resolved. Trusting that assurance, they stood down. Nothing changed. On April 3, residents launched their third and most sus tained protest yet — now entering its ninth consecutive day. On Friday, a delegation met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant at his residence, submitting a memorandum and receiving yet another assurance that action would follow. “Our MLA Ganesh Gaonkar had also given a similar assur ance earlier, but he failed to resolve the issue,” Misal noted pointedly. “Now, we have hope that the Chief Minister will keep his promise and take strict action against this factory.” The factory’s licence expired on March 31. A hearing is scheduled for April 15. Whether the authorities will act — or produce another procedural deferral — remains the ques tion that the women in Palaskatta sit and wait to answer. What is unfolding in Mollem is not an isolated incident. Across Goa, communities — particularly those without political or economic clout — are finding that formal channels of complaint yield little, while sustained, visible protest creates at least the possibility of accountability. The Palaskatta residents have filed complaints, engaged panchayat officials, appointed a legal advocate, and peti tioned elected representatives at every level. Each step was met with either obstruction or a promise that dissolved on contact with reality. Their persistence is a measure of desperation — but also of organisation. The protesters are not waiting for a single charismatic leader or an NGO to take up their cause. They are the elderly women who show up, everyday. They are the panch who refuses to separate her official role from her responsibility to her neighbours. They are a community that has concluded, through hard experience, that no one else is coming.
