Team Herald
VASCO: Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) chairperson Deepak Naik and the citizens of the port town on Friday slammed Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) for its statement on the mushrooming of illegal structures along the hill slopes close to the MPT.
It may be recalled that while responding to a query raised by a citizens during public hearing for capital dredging project and its possible impact on the houses at Sada hillock, the MPT officials on Thursday had claimed that these houses which have mushroomed in recent times on hill slopes close to MPT are illegal and built with scant regard to town planning and engineering safety.
MPT had further claimed that these colonies are not threatened by the port activities and instead are prone to collapse due to the precarious slopes on which these houses have been built utilising unsafe construction materials and techniques. The MPT further stated in its reply that most houses may collapse during the monsoon.
Reacting to MPT’s claims, MMC chairperson Deepak Naik said, “How can MPT talk about illegal houses when they themselves are operating under illegal buildings? Being a central agency, only their operational area is excluded from obtaining permissions from local body and their other buildings including MPT offices and other residential colonies are illegal as it failed to obtained any permission for such buildings from local civic body”.
He further said, “Now when people have been questioning about impact of dredging on these houses located on Sada hillock, MPT says they are illegal to cover up their sins. We are not going to accept such statements by MPT. Also as they (MPT) have raised the issue, now after consulting our legal team we will surely impose house tax on MPT-owned buildings and other offices as they are not exempted from any such relief,” Naik added.
MPT’s statement evoked reactions from the port town residents too.
“How MPT can speak about other illegal houses when they themselves were involved in illegal dredging and were pulled up by the court after fishermen community filed a petition before the court against dredging. Now, when we raised queries over landslide threat to these houses, MPT termed it illegal, which is not acceptable as instead of accepting their faults they have started pointing fingers at the locals,” a citizen on the condition of anonymity told Herald.
He said that if these houses are illegal then what about MPT’s offices and residential buildings that were built without any permission obtained from local body.
