Call it sheer coincidence or lack of intent, the scheduled demolition of 78 houses on Comunidade land at Agonda was postponed at the eleventh hour on Tuesday with the non-availability of police personnel to protect the demolition squad. The Administrator of Comunidades (South) had formed teams to undertake the demolition but failed to get police support for the exercise forcing the demolition to be postponed.
This comes as a surprise because when the situation demands, and whenever the powers are willing, demolitions have been carried out swiftly within hours and with full vengeance. There are several instances where the demolition squads have gone into overdrive and shown extreme urgency in the job.
The occupants of the 78 houses moved the political hierarchies to stall the demolition and save themselves from displacement. Local MLA and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Ramesh Tawadkar sought Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's intervention, who in turn is reported to have assured to look into the matter. Subsequently, the demolition was put off, but the question is, how long?
Non-availability of the police force for a demolition exercise because of the G20 security cannot be an acceptable premise. It will be a mockery if we are made to believe that most of the State's police force protects the foreign delegates and that we don't have enough policemen to keep the wheels of law and order running in other parts of Goa.
On the flip side, demolishing houses, even illegal, involves a humanitarian issue and must be handled with that sensitivity. Tawadkar's request to the CM to intervene may be keeping that in mind. Still, the question is whether a permanent solution is on the horizon or whether the government is merely postponing the inevitable.
Now consider this: The State government has initiated plans to rehabilitate slum dwellers at Moti Dongor, Margao (one of the three slum areas named for rehabilitation, the other two being Zuarinagar and another in Panaji). Interestingly, the Moti Dongor rehabilitation comes against a demolition order of around 200 structures pending in the High Court. Moreover, a demolition order of illegal structures passed by the Administrator of Comunidades has been pending since 2013.
The government's insistence on the rehabilitation plan was endorsed lately by Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, who said there's no looking back and "inhabitants also have a right to decent living". Ironically, slums across the State have been significant vote banks of political leaders to the extent that some even have electoral weightage to decide the fate of candidates.
The question is about keeping the Agonda encroachment issue hanging. Why is a similar rehabilitation package not considered for these people who could live without a roof? Is the sheer lack of political weightage separating them from those getting rehabilitated at Moti Dongor? Or are the Agonda encroachers paying a political price?
While encroachment per se must not be encouraged in any scenario, the government must play it fair and square and consider all options before displacing people. And more importantly, it cannot apply two yardsticks for encroachers -- one that suits political interests and the other that doesn't.
