Team Herald
MARGAO: Former minister Mickky Pacheco while demanding the immediate withdrawal of Regional Plan 2021 and the TDR introduced by the government threatened to launch an agitation against the two and accused the present government of preparing for the Lok Sabha elections scheduled next year.
Briefing media persons, he came down heavily on the meeting held at Colva on Friday where he lamented that not a single person from Colva spoke and the speakers only tried to fool the people by misguiding them.
He said the BJP government is playing with the people and recalled that the RP2021 was kept in abeyance following a State wide agitation led by Goa Bachao Abhiyan and further alleged that the suggestions and objections submitted by the villagers to the TCP to the plan have not been considered at all.
“The villagers of Colva had objected to the 25 mts wide road passing through their village and yet in the new Regional Plan the road is shown as 25 mts wide,” he said adding that this is nothing but a strategy of the BJP government to fool the people.
“Who showed the 25 mts wide road in the plan? The government itself did it and now they want to come and say they will remove it and thus by fooling people they expect to get their votes at the Lok Sabha elections,” he said.
He pointed out that at the meeting on Friday at Colva there were only three speakers and all of them were outsiders. “The Parish Priest, local MLA Churchill Alemao who is from Varca and TCP Minister who is from Fatorda spoke so where was the voice of Colva people?” he asked.
Mickky also castigated Churchill Alemao and accused him for taking people for a ride. He pointed out that Churchill supported the bill amending the Town and Country Planning Act that allows TDR and argued that that bill had nothing to do with the RP2021.“The government wants the two (TDR and RP2021) to go together so that they can loot and plunder whatever little land is remaining with Goans,” he said and warned that if TDR is implemented all Goan water bodies and fields will be destroyed.
He said the Section 16(b) introduced in the Goa Town and Country Planning Act would be detrimental as it permits for conversion on case to case basis and also of private properties. “Earlier land could be converted only for government projects but now even private lands will be converted,” he said.
He said the TCP Act amendment is nothing but a means to enable Vijai Sardessai to loot Goan land.
