Sanguem: Caught in the crossfire between the Government of Goa and the Sociedade Patriotica Dos Baldios Das Novas Conquistas Uguem, the villagers of Uguem are spending sleepless nights worrying over the looming possibility that they may lose the lands they have toiled hard to purchase. While the villagers were already feeling threatened when the government transferred vast swathes of land in the village, including tenanted paddy fields, in its name from the erstwhile Sociedade, the situation escalated after the Sanguem Mamlatdar filed a complaint against the Sociedade, before the Special Investigation Team probing land grab cases. After reportedly recording the statements of the members of the Managing Committee of the Sociedade, the SIT has begun summoning villagers who had purchased plots for housing from the Sociedade for inquiries.
This has sent fear through the people, as most of them purchased the plots with the small savings they scraped together, and have also constructed residential houses on their plots. The Sociedade is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act and is run and managed by a committee which is appointed bi-annually through the annual General Body meeting of the Society shareholders.
The Sociedade owns lakhs of square metres of land, primarily agricultural, in Uguem, Kalay and Colem villages, and the residents of these villages would like it to remain this way as the Sociedade has never disturbed the possession of land held by the villagers with for cultivation or housing purposes. “Uguem village has always remained entirely inhabited by locals, with no outside population settling here. The village has been free from any high-rise commercial or residential buildings given the fact that the village has no outsiders, and this is because of control exercised by the Sociedade in the village,” said a local.
“But since the time of transfer of the land in the name of the government of Goa, encroachments on the open swathes of land have become the order of the day,” he lamented, pointing at the wooden fences that have cropped up in several places in the remote parts of Uguem and Costi villages. Back in 2012, when the late Manohar Parrikar was the Chief Minister, the state government had acquired a vast portion of land from the Sociedade for the construction of the first phase of the mining bypass road and also for laying of a pipeline to augment water supply to the Opa Water Treatment Plant from Selaulim Dam. During both of these acquisition proceedings, the BJP government had recognised the Sociedade as the prima facie owners of the lands in the village and the government had even paid a substantial amount as compensation for the lands, to the Sociedade. In 2013-2014, the villagers demanded the allocation of small plots for housing purposes as they could not accommodate the extended population in mundkarial houses. The Sociedade had sold some plots of land exclusively to the villagers, to build residences and better their standards of living.
Incidentally, the matter pertaining to the ownership of the properties which the government has acquired from the Sociedade is sub judice and pending before the High Court. The Sociedade has filed a writ petition against the government for the reversal of the entry in the survey records made by the Sanguem Mamlatdar. It now remains to be seen as to who will get to claim ownership of the disputed lands, with a majority of the Uguem villagers praying that it is reverted to the Sociedade, which they consider a guardian of the agrarian village.
