Margao municipality set to decide on easement amid dispute over long-used road to cemetery
File photo of the existing St Joaquim cemetery road.
Photo Credits: The Goan
MARGAO
As the stage is set for the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) to decide on the Grant of Easement and Deed of Exchange, which would pave the way for a dedicated road access to the land acquired for the proposed kabrastan at Sonsodo, the same old question may come to haunt the authorities – whether the MMC had failed to make a provision for an access road to the proposed kabrastan land at the time of acquisition, as a result of which no dedicated road is provided to the acquired land from the main road other than the existing road leading to the St Joaquim Chapel Cemetery at Sonsodo?
A glance at the note put up by the MMC administration ahead of the Council meeting scheduled on June 11 makes it appear that the Confraria of the Chapel of Borda had encroached on an area of 1001 square metres acquired by the Council and used as part of the cemetery.
Questions are raised in the corridors of the municipal building and outside as to how the MMC can claim the existing cemetery road as an encroachment on the MMC-acquired land when the cemetery and road have existed for more than a decade and a half before the Civic body acquired land admeasuring 30,190 square metres in 2011.
The meeting note stated that the Council, in its Resolution No. 3808 dated May 28, 2010, had resolved to acquire the land of property bearing survey of Chalta No. 1 of P.T. Sheet Nos. 49 & 50, admeasuring an area of 30,191 square metres at Sonsodo. The note further stated that the land in question was acquired vide award dated May 16, 2011, indicating that while the land acquisition process was set in motion in 2010, the proceedings were capped a year later in 2011.
This fact has thrown up a contentious question: how can the MMC or any other authority claim that there was an encroachment on the MMC land when the Chapel cemetery and the road to the burial ground have existed and were being used for around a decade and a half?
This ground reality brings to the fore the moot question of whether the Margao municipality or the land acquisition officer did not ascertain the ground reality by conducting an inspection of the land in question before capping the acquisition proceedings. Otherwise, how does one explain that the MMC has acquired the existing road to the cemetery as access to the proposed kabrastan ground?
Intervener in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), Blaze Mota, questioned how the Margao municipality or any other authority could claim that the cemetery had encroached on the MMC-acquired land for the proposed kabrastan. To drive home the point that the MMC cannot claim "encroachment", Mota claimed that the existing Christian cemetery owned by St Joaquim Chapel, Borda, was built on April 9, 1995, adding that the MMC had acquired the land for the burial grounds/kabrastan only in 2011.
He queried how the MMC did not acquire a separate parcel of land to build a dedicated road access from the main road to the acquired property for the proposed kabrastan/burial ground, but instead acquired the existing road used by the cemetery since 1995.
Deed of Exchange and Grant of Easement draft
At the meeting scheduled on June 11, the Margao Municipal Council will deliberate on the Deed of Exchange and Grant of Easement prepared by municipal lawyer, Adv Sandesh D Padiyar, and grant approval.
The Council has to resolve regarding the “encroached” land in exchange, subject to government approval and further subject to the exchange of land belonging to the Confraria of the Chapel of Borda in place of the “encroached” area.
The Council has also to decide regarding the Deed of Exchange draft to be executed with the Confraria of the Chapel.
