Team Herald
PANJIM: Accusing the Union Shipping Ministry of aggressive moves to take forward the nationalisation of six rivers of Goa, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik on Friday alleged that there is a conspiracy to grab vast and precious land on both banks of these major rivers.
“Goa will cease to have any control over the river beds as also the land on the banks, as may be specified by rules framed by the Central Government under The Nationalisation of Rivers Act. It is a fact that there is a big conspiracy involved to grab vast precious land lying on both sides of Mandovi, Zuari, Mapusa, Chapora and Sal rivers in Goa,” Naik said.
The Congress leader said that Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar failed to fulfill the assurance given on the Floor of House that he would take all stakeholders into confidence before signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for nationalisation of inland waterways with the Inland Waterways Authority.
Naik alleged that the Chief Minister could not fulfill his promise of showing the draft to the MLAs as “Union Minister for Shipping Nitin Gadkari kept Goa Government in dark.”
Inland Waterways Authority of India had recently signed an agreement with Mormugao Port Trust to dredge the port area. Naik said that MPT is not an entity which can function in isolation and the land on which MPT operates being sovereign land, MPT and Gadkari or any ministry he represents cannot sign an agreement disregarding the State Government.
“If dredging for the purpose of improving transportation through rivers was the only objective, it could have been achieved by giving some financial assistance to Goa government, who would have been bound to take the fishermen community into confidence before undertaking any dredging activity,” Naik added.
