The news that the government will look into the recommendations submitted by the Comunidade Commission to the previous government is a step in the right direction as it provides some hope that the age-old institution can evolve with the times to stay relevant.
The commission was set up back in 2013 and headed by the Deputy Chief Minister and Revenue Minister Francis D'Souza to study the functioning and organisation of the administration offices and recommend measures for their efficient functioning and to identify dead or non-functional comunidades and make recommendations for their liquidations for merger as per law and fix accountability for illegal and irregular acts committed by the Administration offices over the years.
The road to today, where the government has said it would implement the recommendations of the commission, was a long and hard fought one, making it all the more important for the government to take it to its logical conclusion.
The government had announced the constitution of the Commission, based on directions of the High Court way back in February 2013. The report was tabled only to be shelved by the previous government until the current government decided to look at the issue.
It is no secret that comunidades are facing their biggest challenges in their millennia long existence only in the last few years.
After losing the rights to their lands to tenants with the enactment of the Goa Agricultural Tenancy Act, comunidades especially the holders of lucrative land, have seen acts of corrupt committee members give away the land for personal profit and a community loss.
Recommendations like removing gender bias, a remnant of a previous era, to make comunidades more representative, efforts to bring fallow land under cultivation as well as a discussion on comunidade land ownership in an age when commonly held resources are used for private profit should indeed be welcomed. So also setting up consultation committees in each of the three comunidade zones and giving shareholders right to purchase comunidade land which is presently only restricted to Gaonkars are all positive moves.
However, remedying these issues is easier said than done. More than that, any proposed amendments or changes comes with the threat that the government and ministers could misuse the opportunity to amend the codes and laws in favour of business interests. This should be carefully guarded against.
Commonly held land resources need be monetised, but not for private profit nor should comunidade land be sliced and parcelled out to those currently at the helm especially when it was carefully guarded by our ancestors for their future generations.
The commission was set up back in 2013 and headed by the Deputy Chief Minister and Revenue Minister Francis D'Souza to study the functioning and organisation of the administration offices and recommend measures for their efficient functioning and to identify dead or non-functional comunidades and make recommendations for their liquidations for merger as per law and fix accountability for illegal and irregular acts committed by the Administration offices over the years.
The road to today, where the government has said it would implement the recommendations of the commission, was a long and hard fought one, making it all the more important for the government to take it to its logical conclusion.
The government had announced the constitution of the Commission, based on directions of the High Court way back in February 2013. The report was tabled only to be shelved by the previous government until the current government decided to look at the issue.
It is no secret that comunidades are facing their biggest challenges in their millennia long existence only in the last few years.
After losing the rights to their lands to tenants with the enactment of the Goa Agricultural Tenancy Act, comunidades especially the holders of lucrative land, have seen acts of corrupt committee members give away the land for personal profit and a community loss.
Recommendations like removing gender bias, a remnant of a previous era, to make comunidades more representative, efforts to bring fallow land under cultivation as well as a discussion on comunidade land ownership in an age when commonly held resources are used for private profit should indeed be welcomed. So also setting up consultation committees in each of the three comunidade zones and giving shareholders right to purchase comunidade land which is presently only restricted to Gaonkars are all positive moves.
However, remedying these issues is easier said than done. More than that, any proposed amendments or changes comes with the threat that the government and ministers could misuse the opportunity to amend the codes and laws in favour of business interests. This should be carefully guarded against.
Commonly held land resources need be monetised, but not for private profit nor should comunidade land be sliced and parcelled out to those currently at the helm especially when it was carefully guarded by our ancestors for their future generations.
