SHWETA KAMAT
PANJIM: If one goes by the report of the high level working committee headed by Dr K Kasturirangan, commissioned by Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) one would get the impression that Sanguem taluka has only one village named Colem, and Sattari has just one village too – Kodal.
A detailed analysis of the Kasturirangan committee report reveals that there are seven such villages whose names are distorted by various spellings and these villages are non existent.
The Committee, whose report has been objected to by State government, has identified a total of 99 villages in the talukas of Sattari, Sanguem and Canacona as the eco-sensitive zones or areas of the Western Ghat.
In Sattari, 56 villages have been categorized as ECZ, the names of four villages have been repeated with different spellings — Karambali Bramha & Karambali Buzruk, Hassorde & Aasorde, Ivre khurd & Ivre Budrunk, Kodal & Kodal.
In Sanguem, the repeated names of villages are — Kamarkhand & Kamarkhand, Colem & Kolem, Dongurli & Dongur. As many as 38 villages in this taluka have been identified as ECZ.
Sameer Gaonkar a panch member from Sattari said “all these names are badly repeated with different spellings. This exposed the lack of a professional study done by the committee”.
