PANJIM: “At no point must the hardworking farmer think he is alone. We are all together in creating a better tomorrow for the farmers of India,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in a tweet after Gajendra Singh, committed suicide at a rally in Delhi in April this year.
However, the prime minister’s words seem to have fallen on the deaf ears of the State government, which is bent on displacing farmers from their land.
What is shocking is that many of these atrocities have been happening in Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar’s constituency of Mandrem where farmers are up-in-arms against the alleged illegal “land grabbing by the State government” for the proposed Electronic City at Tuem.
Herald investigations have revealed that names of legal lease holders have been illegally deleted from Form I & XIV.
For the Electronic City project the government has so far allegedly illegally taken over, or is in the process of taking over (in couple of cases), around 3,08,625 sq mtrs of land in prime forested areas.
The villagers of Tuem are up-in-arms as already seven lakh sq metres of their land has been in possession of Goa Industrial Development Corporation for the Tuem Industrial Estate and another 6 lakh sq mts are to be added for the Electronic City.
Herald investigations have also revealed that not only leased land but legal tenanted land has been taken away from a farmer, Amarnath Naik, without his consent or permission.
Also, a No Objection Certificate has been obtained by PWD from the Forest Department for cutting 442 trees, on a false NOC from the owner of the land Surendranath Sripad Shenvi Desai.
What was even more shocking was that Naik who protested the illegal cutting of his cultivated trees was sent to jail for a day.
“This government has no concern for its people. It is going ahead with care a damn attitude. When the entire nation is trying to find ways to minimise farmers’ suicides, here in Goa we are forcing them to take such steps,” said environmentalists Ramesh Gauns.
Gauns also pointed out that the latest compilation of farmer suicide statistics for 2014 by the National Crime Record Bureau clearly brings out the dark underbelly of Indian agriculture. With 12,360 farmer suicides recorded in 2014, it only shows that one farmer commits suicide somewhere in the country every 42 minutes.
“I have visited the place and found that the farmers rely on produce from the farms. What is the need for such a project without a feasibility report?” he asked.
Goa Foundation’s Claude Alvares said the site for the Electronic City is not marked for the purpose in the RP 2001 as well as RP 2021. “The project is going ahead just because the chief minister is pushing it,” he says.
Dy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza who also holds the Revenue portfolio says he has no knowledge of any illegalities in the acquisition process. “What I know is that it is government land which has been taken back from lease holders,” he said.
When it was pointed out that names have been deleted from Form I & XIV without sending notices, he said, “That is not true. There is a procedure to be followed. The department must have sent the notices before taking land back. I don’t have any off-hand knowledge of the issue hence can’t comment more.”
