The North Goa Truck Owners Association President Mahesh (Shamba) Gawas who had battled long for the cause of people from the mining belts and for the cause of truck owners and restarting mining in Goa resigned from his post claiming that some people in the business, in connivance with Politicians are maligning his image which he cannot tolerate.
When the locals of the area were asked, they noted that Shamba is a strong candidate for rival politicians and that he had contested the assembly elections as a candidate of the MGP.
He considers himself to have a good social image. Coming from a downtrodden family, he knows the problems of the mining belt. “People here have grown up suffering with mining pollution and still they are dependent on it for livelihood and hence want the business to restart at the earliest,” he said. He said that he was striving hard to achieve this. People from the business know his work and have recognized his contribution to the cause and hence elected his wife, Shubhecha
Gawas as a ZP member.
Asked whether he will contest the next Assembly Election, he said he hadn’t taken a decision yet.
During his tenure as president, he fought for the welfare of truck owners and the commencement of mining in the state. He said that the only reason he quit his post is because of the defamation caused to him by some individuals to gain political mileage and made it a point to note that all the allegations levelled against him were false.
He expressed surprise over the development that after 5 months of accepting the rates decided by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar for e-auctioned ore transportation, there was a sudden strike and bandh culminating in the formation of the All Goa Truck Owners Association for a hike in the rates. He challenged the association president, Nilkant Gawas and dared him to participate in an open debate on his contributions towards the truck owners’ welfare and said he would leave it to the people to decide his contributions.
Gawas alleged that Sanquelim MLA, Dr Pramod Sawant, last April denied the association members an appointment with Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar in order to discuss the OTS scheme.
Gawas also stated that he struggled throughout his tenure from 2008*2015. He said that under his leadership he opposed the government to implement the Speed governor in 2008. The NGTOA also again successfully opposed high security number plates and launched a State wide agitation against high security number plates for trucks.
He said that when the Goa government suspended mining operations in September 2012, followed by a Supreme Court blanket ban, NGTOA along with SGTOA launced a massive struggle to restart mining operations as the livelihoods of all truck owners was at stake.
NGTOA also become part of Goa Mining Peoples Front and continuosly fought for two and half years. It lauched a massive agitation to protect the livelihoods and business of mining truck operators.
The association staged massive public rallies in Panjim, Bicholim, Sanguem, Sanvordem etc. It staged 73 days dharnas at Azad Maidan and 2 days dharnas at Zantar Mantar and met PM Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Jayanthi Natarajan etc more than 4 times to restart mining operations.
Even in June 2015 as President of NGTOA, along with office bearers he discussed rate enhancement with CM Laxmikant Parsekar regarding transportation of e-auctioned ore and the CM had agreed in principal to give a rate hike to the transportation of ore.
He said he is in the business of transportation since 1989 and added, “I have various contracts. However, I always worked for the betterment of my colleagues who will decide whether I have contributed to the welfare of truck owners and overall mining industry or not.”
