Tomorrow will mark two weeks since the Goa Revenue Department issued a circular directing enforcement authorities to act against various instances of illegal filling on the roadside areas along national highways/state highways and illegal mushrooming of various construction in areas of road widening.
The circular directed the concerned collector, deputy collector, mamlatdars and flying squads “to initiate a special drive and carry out inspections at all road widening areas/ National Highways/ State Highways in their respective jurisdiction… and if any violations are noticed, they shall take immediate action in the restoration of the land including removing of illegal structures if any, and also necessary action against violators as per law within 48 hours of the issue of this circular.”
However, two weeks since the circular has been issued, there has been very little action on the ground in clearing the illegalities and restoring the land to its original condition. A casual drive through, not just the highways but any village of Bardez, and one notices an unmistakable exponential rise in a plethora of “non-agricultural” activities taking place in the low-lying lands.
Not a single stretch of road has been spared the menace of land-filling and the highways all along hitherto untouched villages of Guirim, Parra, Camarkhazan, Bastora, Socorro Ucassaim and many others were being filled little by little, but are now being filled by the truckload -- often overnight -- to make way for activities like nurseries, cement block yards, marble sale yards, scrap yards, stalls selling teddy bears, car wash centres, furniture shops, restaurants and even entire buildings have emerged in what was once marshy lands reserved for agriculture and also served as lands for flooding during the rainy season.
Despite the best efforts by the activists and even orders from the High Court from time to time, the land-filling continues at an unrelenting pace. The days when flying squads would rush to a site and examine the work on the receipt of a complaint of illegality seem like a really long time ago. The system of enforcement of laws seems to have completely collapsed raising a suspicion that authorities are actively promoting such illegalities and profiting from them either granting them permissions or allowing them to come up and preventing action to be taken against them.
The circular issued by the Revenue Department came like a breath of fresh air at a time when people are increasingly livid at the lack of action against such obvious illegalities. Circulars, however, mean nothing if not accompanied by action and if completely ignored by the authorities, whose very duty is to maintain a vigil and ensure such structures do not mushroom along these lands.
The Goa Land Use Act is very clear that agricultural land cannot be diverted for any other purposes. Similarly, the Town and Country Planning Act and Rules are very clear about the protection to be granted not just to khazan lands but also to slopes of a gradient greater than 1:4. However, on the ground the situation seems to suggest that these provisions have ceased to exist.
It is high time, the government gets its act together and gets the men and machinery moving to ensure the law is upheld -- lest the courts intervene and haul up authorities.
