Herald: Hello and welcome. We are here to discuss something extremely important; something which affects the lives, livelihoods and futures of everyone in Goa. This discussion is restricted to just two villages: Tiracol and Carmona. The story of these two villages is basically the same. They are fighting against huge projects, which have come by taking away land surreptitiously, by not following rules and regulations, and by not taking people into confidence. In a nutshell, this is the story of Goa. The only bright spark is that people are rising, people’s movements are happening. In Tiracol the fight is against leading hotels and in Carmona it is against Rahejas. While many say that activists are basically bringers of doom for development, the argument can easily be countered because so many people of Goa can’t be wrong. Unfortunately, the government, instead of being with the people, is with the people who are bringing in money. Bringing in money is not wrong, but the illegal and anti-people manner in which it is brought, is something that has angered everybody or every right-thinking person in Goa. Our panelists for this discussion are Francis Rodrigues, president of St Anthony’s Tenant and Mundkars Association; Floriano Lobo, general secretary of Goa Suraj Party; Sudeep Dalvi, convener of the ‘Save Goa, Save Tiracol’ movement; and Serafino Cota, activist and social worker from Carmona.
Herald: The first segment will be about why the government and the people are not together. Francis, why do you feel that the government and people are not together in Tiracol and Carmona? Why is this happening?
Rodrigues: The government is one-sided and not in favour of the people. This is why all the problems have arisen. The government is on only one side – the side of the builders lobby. Locals are frustrated because of this.
Herald: Didn’t anyone feel this way back when the land was sold? Why did it take so long for this whole thing to fester? Didn’t anyone realize earlier that they were being cheated?
Rodrigues: We have been struggling for the last seven years. We made a memorandum to different departments, but no department responded. We had to approach the court since the government was not taking any interest in us. Only then things started moving.
Herald: Sudin, your views on why the government and people are not together. Is it a new phenomenon or was it always there.
Lobo: It has always been there. Let us start from when we put the government in place. We elect people because we want them there. The government has become the facilitator of the builder’s lobby.
Herald: But why don’t the gram sabhas and panchayat protest as soon as a project is introduced?
Lobo: There is something like a building code. You go by the building code, which has been notified by the government. For everything there is a code. Now how do violations of this code take place? Take the instance of salt pans in Calapor. I was the guy who filed a petition in the high court and stopped that, because a minister had converted it. You’re not supposed to convert a salt pan. How does the minister have the authority to convert everything? Where is the agenda of the government? The minister follows his own agenda. Another minister came later and followed his own agenda of converting everything for money. The panchayats are stooges. Previously, the file of any development used to go to the panchayat. The panchayat will forward it to the Town and Country Planning (TCP) department. It so happened that the files were never being forwarded in time to TCP for further process because the panchayats were waiting for money. Whether you’re building a house or other project, if you don’t pay them, the file doesn’t move. We protested and got that changed. The files now go directly to the TCP. They check if everything is correct and approve the plan.
Herald: Sudeep, do you think we are electing the wrong kind of people? Where does the problem lie?
Dalvi: Let me come to the basics. The government is formed by politicians and run by executives. Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB), TCP – these are all executive bodies. Politicians take votes from the public and get selected. At the same time he is taking money from businessmen and with that money he is contesting the election. Now he has dual loyalties; his loyalty to his voters and his loyalty to who he has taken money. When he comes to power, he already knows whom to serve, who is his master. That master is definitely not the citizens. The master is the casino lobby, the builder lobby, mining lobby, this lobby and that lobby. The government is running on an agenda that is being decided by different lobbies. That is how the people’s agenda never comes into the picture.
Herald: Serafino, taking off from what Sudeep has just said, how is this playing out in Carmona?
Cota: Firstly, what everyone has spoken is correct. This is what is happening in Goa. On the other hand, the political will is not there. It is not like that only today; it has been like that for at least 30 years. Nobody wants to design a Goa for the future. Let it be language, education, housing projects, etc. The population of Carmona is around 3,800 people. The locals getting reduced to a minority is one problem with the Carmona project. You may say that India is for everyone. I know a friend who wants to build eight flats, but there is no six-metre road at the location. TCP rejected his plan. What would happen with the eight flats in the village?
Herald: Are you saying local builders are being rejected and outsiders are being given preferential treatment?
Cota: Yes. Nowadays, many local builders don’t want to visit the village. In Carmona, I am quite proud to say, before the builder could just place a pickaxe at the site, people objected to the project. Apart from the security gate and the boundary wall, nothing is there. People have started the movement right at the start. The road in our village is not big enough; we do not have proper electricity and water supply and so on. That’s why the people are objecting.
Herald: Sudin, are we taking the no-project movement too far?
Dalvi: Not at all. Since liberation, we have been pushed to a wall. Day by day, minute by minute, second by second we are being pushed to the wall. Ultimately there will be a point when any person would stand up and say enough is enough. The way constructions are happening in Goa presently, anybody is supposed to stand up and say no. Goans are not doing anything.
Herald: But with an increase in population, why won’t we be allowed to build more houses?
Dalvi: In a sustainable way, yes. The way it is going on right now, definitely no.
Herald: What is the greed in allowing houses to come up if people can buy them? Where is the greed here?
Dalvi: A small village with a population of 3,800, which has a mega-housing project thrust upon it – do you think it is justified by any means? Not at all. That’s simply thrusting something that is not required upon us.
Herald: A solution to this as you rightly pointed out is that if we follow the planning process, and if these projects are struck off at the planning stage, then the matter ends there.
Lobo: Absolutely. The government is not following the right guidelines. The villages in Goa are pristine and quite. Buildings that are coming up in the villages are taller than the trees. Look at Calangute. It is still categorized as a village. Look at the buildings there. Who did it? The panchayat doesn’t allow more than ground plus two. Calangute has become urban, so why is it still a village panchayat? If you’ve allowed it to grow, you have to change the status. So that standard of village goes elsewhere. I am a builder by choice. I passed a resolution in the Moira gram sabha that there should be no ground plus two buildings allowed. When I passed that resolution, a gram sabha member asked me why I build buildings. I told him to look at the rules and who has made the rules. You can construct ground plus two. That is a TCP regulation. Now if a person wants me to build something on his plot can I tell him that I am going to build only a ground-plus-one structure? Instead of two flats I cannot give him only one flat. He won’t remain with me. He’ll go to the next builder and get it done. Who has lost? Why I passed the resolution was for the government to open its eyes and see to it that the villages have ground plus one structures and finish it there. And if a parking space is completed, then you allow ground plus two. If this rule is made at the government level, these confrontations will never come in.
Rodrigues: Let us not take an individual decision. Before you go for any type of planning, you have to take the locals into confidence. We also require expert planners. If we combine these two together, we can do proper and fair planning in our villages.
Herald: As far as Tiracol is concerned, do you think the situation has gone out of hand? Where does the fight lie in bringing Tiracol back?
Rodrigues: The situation in Tiracol has gone out of hand. Land in the village has been acquired, and at present there is no chance to say anything about it. Before acquiring the land, the builder violated many rules. They have violated the Agricultural Tenancy Act first of all. The locals’ survival depended on agriculture. We have no more land in Tiracol and we don’t know what to do. We don’t know whether that development will bring us some relief or not. The development happening in the village is very bad. It is only going to destroy the village and nothing else.
Lobo: Leading Hotels has purchased 5 lakh square metres of land in Tiracol. Many people have sold their properties for cash, and only after that they realized it is bad for the village. This exercise has started many years ago. Leading Hotels has been going around purchasing properties and nobody questioned them.
Rodrigues: Under the Tenancy Act, you cannot sell the property.
Herald: But that was exactly what was done. Ultimately Leading Hotels managed to do what it wanted. Land was sold and money was taken. Can you deny this?
Lobo: There are facilitators who have been working to sell these properties in Tiracol. They have made crores of rupees through commission. We have already named Vishwajit Rane, who has made 26 crore. There is Harlankar, a former PDA chairman who has made 5 lakh.
Herald: Sudeep, we are looking at the people’s movement now. Do you see any hope in this movement? The people of Goa are working against a humungous wall in the form of the government. At the end of the day, either Leading Hotels or Rahejas are insignificant if the government is on the right side. How do you tackle the government issue?
Dalvi: One thing is for sure: David has to kill Goliath, and that is his destiny. It is inevitable. Secondly, when I was going from village to village and singing my songs as part of ‘Save Tiracol, Save Goa’, the tremendous response I got shows that people have an urge to fight back. When people have that urge, things will move forward.
Herald: Suppose the government turns around and says it is not bothered. It says it has to get investments and asks the activists to shout as much as they want.
Dalvi: That cannot happen. When people come onto the streets, things will change. That is a fundamental law.
Lobo: You’re talking about investment? The Investment Promotion Board (IPB) is just a facilitator. They go around giving all the permissions for money.
Herald: Serafino, let’s put the focus back on Carmona. What is the next stage in Carmona?
Cota: The difference between Tiracol and Carmona is that nothing has started in Carmona. They builder can revise the plan, the government can sit and talk with the villagers, re-planning can happen. Off late, the government has been saying that mining has been affected and tourism hasn’t been doing well. On the other side, the government is providing tourism for birdwatchers. Birdwatchers need a good pond, lake, trees, etc. Most places which are being developed are not places which already have settlements. The government should stop deforestation. Large-scale deforestation is taking place in Tiracol and Carmona. Carmona was almost a private forest. At least now the government can sit with the people. There is a lot of scope for this. I feel that both sides should not be arrogant and resolve the issue as soon as possible. You need political will.
Dalvi: People do not come to Goa to watch concrete buildings. They do not come here for casinos. They do not come here for golf courses. They come here for the pristine land. Do not spoil the pristine beauty of my village, do not convert it into a concrete jungle and let it remain as it is. We do not want to convert Goa into Singapore or Malaysia. We want to be Goa.
Lobo: The government seems to be bent on developing Goa. What are you developing for whom? Will any Goan be able to afford the 88 flats of Rahejas? Are you developing Carmona for the locals? For outsiders? Why should Goa take the burden of outsiders? The government is planning industries that are not conducive in Goa. We don’t have labour. For whom is the land being developed? For UPs or Biharis? What about our people?
Rodrigues: What we want is moderate development in Goa. That development should be suitable for Goans first and then outsiders.
Herald: That’s very well put. At the end of the day, let us look at our benefits. Let the government work for the people of Goa. These are times when we are all fighting, but I think there is a light. The tunnel is not all dark. We have people like our panelists, plus so many others who are fighting with them. I think thers a lot of hope. The fight must go on, and the government must understand that people are not here just to get into a ‘no’ movement. People are here because they genuinely care about their futures, the future of their children and the future of the land. We will carry on this discussion. Thank you.
