MARGAO: The farmers of the fields near Saipem lake will be meeting the Navelim village panchayat and other government departments on May 7 to discuss reviving the fields that had been left fallow for years due to the sewage contamination issue.
The Navelim MLA Ulhas Tuenkar has also been invited by the Navelim Village Development Committee (VDC) that is coordinating this meeting and the MLA will be asked to ensure that concerned government departments like the Agriculture Department etc will send their resource persons for the meeting.
The Navelim VDC recently decided to join hands with the farmers with the aim of restarting cultivation after years in these paddy fields via community farming.
The VDC has also decided to ask the Chinchinim Farmers’ Club (CAC) and Fr George Quadros of the Don Bosco Agricultural Unit to guide them in this initiative given that Fr Quadros and CAC had revived vast acres of land in Chinchinim that were earlier lying abandoned.
While the VDC has put this proposal in the gram panchayat’s development plan, the Navelim Sarpanch Paulo Pereira has also extended full support to the farmers and helped them avail subsidies that can benefit this joint initiative. Farmers have been complaining about their inability to restart cultivation so far due to the contamination issue and due to the lack of support from government departments.
It may be recalled that a Navelim citizen Antonio Alvares has earlier approached the High Court, which issued directions to the government agencies concerned and the Margao Municipality to plug the sources through which raw sewage and wastewater was being discharged into the Saipem Lake.
