Tribal roads airbrushed by SLC, as builders march in

Team Herald

teamherald@herald-goa.com

COLA (Canacona): Mohan Velip is coming to terms with a word called “planning”. He is confused since this new genie called planning has taken his ancient tribal roads out of his village plan. He has learnt that some tribal homes too are not there. He asked a team of local researchers if his home too would go.

A team of local researchers who went to do a physical verification of houses along the roads, and also those lying within or adjacent to existing settlement areas, found that they have been airbrushed out by the planners. Most of these houses belong to Velips and other indigenous people.

The RP 2021 for the village  notifies a number of massive changes in land use in Cola village, with about 300% increase in land under settlement zone. Lakhs of square metres of land lying in highly eco-sensitive areas in the coastal regulatory zone (CRZ), forests, steep slopes and plateaus have been marked as settlement zones. New settlement zones have been shown on uninhabited common lands, tenanted lands and tribal lands in Nuem ward, within the Cabo-de-Rama fort, on the pristine plateau at Goval, on Rajbagh beach, near MateaMol and also along the main road. 

The beneficiaries of these land use changes include Kankani Properties (P) Ltd, Margao, M/s Bonjour Investment Company Private Limited , Uniworth Resorts Ltd, V.S. Dempo and Shitij BuildCon Pvt Ltd, who are among the occupants of these lands as per government land records.

The state level committee’s liberal use of Google images wasn’t quite put to good use here. Existing tarred roads, marked on Google Earth, leading to the ancient tribal settlements at Parikotto and Cuddi have not been shown. These settlements are identified on the survey plans. A local tribal, Vithoba, echoed the sentiments of the rest of the villagers when he said “How can they not show the pathways which form the basis of our economic activities? Our livelihoods are completely dependent on our coconut and cashew groves, fishing spots, grazing grounds and forests, and we shall not rest till these are clearly demarcated on the plan.”

 In stark contrast, new 10-metre-wide roads have been shown where no roads exist presently, leading mostly to large settlement zones added by the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department in CRZ and other eco-sensitive areas, and strangely, even into forested lands.

The RP 2021 for Cola clearly tramples upon the rights of tribals, fishermen and other local residents, while facilitating speculative changes in land uses to benefit builders.