TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Congress party Tuesday demanded that Goa government should take locals into confidence before finalizing the proposed National Institute of Technology (NIT) complex at Cuncolim.
Government should reserve some seats exclusively for Cuncolim students and jobs for locals, as a precondition to set up the facility in the village, the Congress said.
“We are not opposing the NIT but government should take people into confidence,” CLP spokesman Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco said at a press conference Tuesday in the presence of Cuncolim Municipal Council Chairman Devendra Desai.
The CMC, which has already adopted a resolution opposing the project, has demanded that NIT would be allowed only if Cuncolim locals are given reservations in the seats and jobs, without disclosing how many jobs and what kind of jobs they would want to be reserved. This is despite the NIT already offering 50 per cent reservation in seats for Goan students from the academic year 2010-11.
Lourenco, replying to media questions clarified the party does not oppose the project in toto. “The party is not opposed to NIT. It can be set up at any place, where government has already acquired land and kept it unutilized. If Cuncolim villagers oppose NIT, the facility should not be forced there,” he said.
The government has already acquired six lakh square metre of land for the NIT campus at Cuncolim while the institution is temporarily functioning from Farmagudi.
