Team Herald
BAGA: The villagers of Arpora, Nagoa, Baga and members of Calangute Constituency Forum halted the on-going alleged illegal construction of a 10 meter wide road being carried out by cutting through the Baga hill.
The villagers complained that despite filing complaints, the North Goa flying squad, constituted to check illegal hill cutting and illegal filling of low-lying land failed to visit the site on Tuesday as well as the previous day.
Locals allege that several trees were cut to build the road to cater to the builder lobby. The road has been built in survey Nos 265/1, 265/2 and 253 after levelling the hill.
Calangute Constituency Forum President Premanand Divkar informed Herald that this work was undertaken over the last one week.
“This place is not frequented by locals and hence we were unaware of this blatant activity. Ten days back, some local boys had gone for a picnic to the same spot and everything was fine. This hill is rich with bio-diversity and hence the government should make sure no concretisation takes place here. In the ODP, the Baga hill was shown as a vacant area. Some of the survey numbers through which the road is being constructed belongs to the comunidade of Calangute,” Premanand pointed out.
The angry villagers who were present at the site to stop the road construction remarked that the work was initiated soon after the new managing committee for the Calangute comunidade was elected.
Arpora-Nagoa Panch Vidhyadhar Divkar was also present at the site along with the villagers to stop the illegal activity and the heavy earth moving machines.
“Nothing was discussed about permission being given to construct a road on the Baga hill. I do not think the person carrying out the work has the required permission from the panchayat. Whatever is done is incredible; they have just cut the trees on the hill,” Divkar said.
The Calanagute Constituency Forum will be writing to the North Goa Collectorate and SP North asking them to initiate action regarding the hill cutting.
Earlier, this month they had written to the North Goa Collector asking for a drive to be carried out against pimps, touts, beggars, illegal hawkers and masseuse in the coastal area of Calangute and Candolim.
On January 15, the North Goa Collectorate wrote to the SP North requesting an inquiry into the matter in terms of Immoral Traffic Prevention Act and a report be submitted to them at the earliest for further action.
