The Goa government continues to protect the private interestof one powerful individual in Dabolim and his builder associates at the cost ofjeopardising the expansion of the Dabolim airport. While the Digambar Kamatgovernment’s blatant and shocking decision of de-notifying 36,800 square metersof land in survey number 8/1, earmarked as a parking area of the new expandedDabolim airport, has been legally challenged, the Parrikar government hasrefrained from taking the pro-active step of re notifying it.
Chief Minister Parrikar, on his visit to South Goa onFriday, made an apparent move to correct the fraudulent de-notification with arider. “Let the Congress first admit that the Chief Minister made money beforedropping the land. I will then acquire the de-notified land”
Notwithstanding the public posturing on the issue, the Chief Minister needsabsolutely no external catalyst to reacquire the land, given back to Bernard D‘Costa on the grounds that he was a son of the soil and needed the land forfamily use. This has turned out to be complete hoax. Soon after thedenotification, the land which belonged to Bernard Costa and family (total of34, mainly Costas) all under the same mutation number 10098, had threeinteresting additional mutations, in the name of Anand Chandra Bose, one ofGoa’s most prominent builders. The mega housing project currently underway onthis land by Umariya Builders, obviously has Anand Bose’s blessings andinvolvement.
But let’s leave Bose aside for the moment since he, as a businessman,is supposedly seizing a legal business opportunity. It is Bernard Costa, whomanaged to sit on a high level meeting of the Chief Minister, Revenue Minister,Deputy Speaker, the Chief Secretary and other officials and get the land backfor “family use”. In fact, Revenue Minister, said in the meeting that Costa“pleaded” that the land was meant for family use and it would be unfair toacquire the land.
Apart from the misrepresentation of facts, which is causeenough to get the land back, here are cold hard, non-emotional reasons whylooking for alternate land is tantamount to allowing Costa and the builders tohave field day while the state looks for land for its airport parking.
a) The thenSouth Goa Collector, Pawan Kumar Sain, who is incidentally on the ChiefMinister’s staff had deposed in court,in a hearing on the writ petition challenging the de notification, that the land de-notified Survey 8/1 and 9/1 were the most suitable forparking. This flies in the face of the current Under Secretary Revenue’s letterto the present South Goa Collector “directing” him to acquire landing including “certain surveynumbers of Chicalim village”.
b) Three ofthose survey numbers belong to the Ministry of Defense, which has refused topart with the land. Hence, the most of the land that the government wants toacquire and has informed the court of the same, is not even public or privateland, which cannot be acquired
This is nothing short of double jeopardy. Available land forairport parking, duly acquired after due process of law, was de-notified on thebasis of false declarations and appeals. Instead of re-acquiring that land, thegovernment has embarked on a mission to acquire alternate land, most of whichbelongs to the Ministry of Defence.
We would like to take Chief Minister Parrikar at face valuewhen he says that getting the land is his job and we should leave it to him toget it. But with the information at our disposal, we are unable to fathom whythere is a need to look for any the land, when there is a clear case of gettingthe Costa’s land back.
Moving away from the micro details of the case, is thelarger picture which we presented at the outset. When the government hasstarted a major land acquisition process for the Mopa airport in the North withmost of the land being acquired from poor tribals, most of whom are illiterate,it can’t on other hand to bend over to please a Vasco individual who is issuinghis de-notified land for a major building project.
This has ramifications for all future projects. Thegovernment must realise that most land acquisition for the future will happenin remote rural areas where the oustees will be poor. The government needs towin their confidence in order to make them accept awards andcompensations. The stigma of one ChiefMinister and his senior ministers, dancing to the tunes of one powerfulindividual and the next not getting the land back quickly enough, will hauntevery land acquisition officer in the state. Can a government built on people’saspirations go to the people, when the rich enjoy their lands at the cost ofdevelopment and the poor get stripped off them in the name of development?
