It’s six years since two Schedule Tribe (ST) youth leaders lost their life while agitating for the welfare of STs but nothing has changed for the STs of Yendrem and Keri in Cotigao.
The Department of Tribal Welfare and United Tribal Association Alliance (UTAA) may have observed Prerana Din to pay tributes to the two youth who lost their life fighting while trying to get the demands fulfilled for the tribal people of Goa but for the villages of Endrem and Kerri in Cotigao panchayat, the time has stood still and people are still living in misery to make both ends meet with locals alleging harassment from the Forest Department.
United Tribal Association Alliance (UTAA) was formed by the leaders of the tribal community in Goa to pressurise the local Govt to fulfil their demands. UTAA, under the presidentship of Prakash Velip, had put forth 12 demands viz Implementation of 12% political reservation in state assembly; 12% budgetary provision for tribals, ST commission vested with all powers of the civil court, independent tribal department and tribal ministry, strengthening of ST finance and development corporation by providing adequate funds, tribal forest act, immediate filling up of backlog vacancies in direct recruitment, planning authority for STs, post based roaster in Govt, semi Govt, autonomous bodies and private sectors, imposing ban on selling of land belonging to STs to non STs, notifying tribal areas and simplifying procedures of issue of caste certificates.
When Herald spoke to the president of UTAA Prakash Velip about the fulfilment of the demands put forward by them in 2011 and in the agitation of May 25, 2011, two youth leaders of ST community, Mangesh Gaonkar and Delip Velip had lost their life under tragic circumstances at Balli, Quepem, Velip said most of our demands are under consideration and are being processed and will be implemented in toto shortly.
But if one looks at the two villages of Cotigao Panchayat, namely Endrem and Keri with a combined population of about 100 people, till now have no electricity, no piped water, no motorable road, no school, and no communication facilities. The closest school is 10 kms away and children have to cross through deep forest with streams and a river with no bridges to reach the school. No youth of this village has got any govt jobs; emergency services like ambulance cannot be taken to the village as the approach to the village is only by a footpath.
Rajesh Gaonkar, a youth ST leader from Cotigao, said the people living in these villages are always complaining to him about the lack of any type of facility in these two villages, they allege harassment from Forest Department of the Cotigao Wild Life Sanctuary.
House repairs, digging wells, collecting of dry wood from the forest even for performing final rites are objected by the forest department, they allege. A village youth said “we participated in the UTAA agitation thinking that we will see Acche din but not even a tile has changed from the roof of our house,” he lamented.
It might be recalled that about 6,000 tribals under the UTAA had laid siege to three vital points in Balli by chopping down trees and paralysing road and rail traffic on May 25, 2011. UTAA’s 12 demands included setting up a Schedule Tribes Commission and implementation of the Tribal Forest Act.
After the then Digambar Kamat-led government had agreed to most of their demands, the tribals blocked the traffic and police tried to clear the blockade but the agitators began pelting stones. But the locals, who wanted to vent their anger of the tribals, set fire to a co-operative credit society and a cashew nut factory owned by a tribal leader. The two youth, Manguesh and Dilip, were trapped in the fire, while the remaining managed to set themselves free. The police then registered cases against former minister Prakash Velip and BJP MLA Ramesh Tawadkar.
Digambar later said that the government had agreed to fulfil eight of their 12 demands.
One of the 14 accused in the Balli post-agitation violence, 28-year-old Gajanan Faldesai, later committed suicide behind the Cuncolim Police Station.
