SANGUEM: The sons of the Sanguem soil have spoken. So has the soil.
The farmers of Cotarli have answered the forces, who were hell-bent on setting up the IIT on their farms, denying them access to their lands in the only way they could. By embracing their farms and bringing them to life, after the Centre declared that IIT earmarked land was not suitable.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
The greenery at the site has exposed the false claims made by pro-IIT supporters, including the Sanguem MLA, Subhash Phal Desai insisted that the proposed land was fallow and barren. The farmers too were not “anti-IIT’ but only wanted it not to be built on land which was fit for cultivation.
The farmers during their agitation claimed the vast property identified for the proposed IIT project was cultivated by them, while those in favour of the project for “selfish gains” denied the farmers’ claim with the sole intention to bulldoze the pristine land for concrete structures.
The farmers had no paddy crop grown at the proposed site during summer as the crop is basically cultivated during Rabi Season. To prove the farmers right, it’s not only the people from across Goa who supported the farmers’ agitation in Sanguem till their victory, but the soil too has abundantly stood in support of the sons and daughters of the soil by providing them with the best yield.
Ana Maria Vaz, who is in her eighties, has been cultivating the paddy fields for the past several decades. She thanked the Almighty for proving the pro-IIT supporters wrong.
Vaz also wholeheartedly thanked the Technical Education Board of the Central Government for its upright thinking and for rejecting the proposed IIT at Cotarli for the second time.
“Their concern for the environment and for not having blindly accepted the tall claims made by those in power in the State Government will forever be remembered by the local farmers,” she said.
Cristalina, another farmer, also brought to the fore the efforts they had to put in when they first brought the area under cultivation.
“We had to literally toil with our parents to get the soil ready for cultivation several decades ago. We protected these lands from being encroached by outside parties. The farm operations that we have undertaken over here are testimony of our efforts,” Cristalina claimed.
Constancio Mascarenhas added, “In spite the presence of the number of fruit-bearing trees in Cotarli, the pro-IIT supporters tried to prove the farmers wrong through their make-believe videos on social media. But as always nature never left us and remained on our side till we won,” she claimed.
And nature’s vast bounty on these very fields is for all to see.
