ASMITA POLJI
asmita@herald-goa.com
A small protest or a little opposition against an illegal jetty in Siolim seems to have turned into a full-blown revolt against the four-time sitting MLA Dayanand Mandrekar.
Throwing caution to the wind, the Water Resources Department had taken up construction of a Rs 16 crore jetty at Siolim without conducting an Environment Impact Assessment or a study from NIO.
Activists alleged that the construction of the jetty was carried out without even an NOC from the panchayat.
Based on a petition, the National Green Tribunal ordered a permanent stay on the project, which was the first setback for the ruling MLA and also the minister in Parsekar cabinet.
The stay on the project gave the residents courage to revolt against Mandrekar, Siolkars now say.
“The opposition to the jetty united the entire village of Siolim as the project majorly affected the fisherman and farmers community,” said Ashok Vernekar local farmer.
He said the the wall on which Jetty is getting constructed is a protection wall for our fields and secondly, the land which has been acquired for the project is in possession of the same 31 farmers who have fields here.
“WRD started off with the project work without permission as well as after taking fake permission from people. This project is no where beneficial to the locals,” he said.
Locals are also apprehensive as for the jetty a few shops have already been removed if the projects continues the remaining shops will also removed.
“We are running business here from more than 25 years. The government has not assured us whether we will get our shops back or rehabilitated after complexion of project,” local shop owner said.
Many locals have say that Dayanand Mandrekar has forcefully implemented this project on the locals. In the name of beautification of protection wall he has started off with the Jetty.
“He has backstabbed us,” locals allege.
IMPACT ON POLLS
For years, there was no opposition to the Siolim MLA but the campaign against jetty united the citizens.
The immediate fallout could be seen during camapigning of 2017 Assembly elections wherein large number of villagers from Congress and BJP have sided with the Goa Forward candidate Vinod Palyekar.
Suvarn Sangit, the petitioner who went to NGT, said, ”We want no project which will affect the nature. Government is coming up with this type of projects due to which people had to go in courts to fight for their rights.”
“NGT has shown that they are really bothered to save the nature. The people of Siolim were living in fear of the MLA”, he said.
Vinod Palyekar Goa Forward candidate for Siolim Constituency said, ”Without taking proper permission the project was started off. This project has received permanent stay and we are happy about it.”
He added, “the EIA takes minimum two years but was taken within two months by this MLA. However to his bad luck, the NGT has stayed the project. We don’t want the project to come up since it is not feasible at the proposed land”.
Palyekar says that the amount of support he is getting from people shows that the people are against the project and Mandrekar.
