MARGAO
Is a housing rehabilitation bonanza on the cards for the migrant-inhabited Moti Dongor, Margao at government cost?
Less than a week after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced the rehabilitation of the slum dwellers in Margao in his budget speech, officials of the Land Survey department descended at Moti Dongor to survey the comunidade land playing host to the shanties.
If officials in the know are to be believed, the land survey exercise has set in motion the process towards the acquisition of the land in question, which may culminate in the rehabilitation of the migrant inhabitants atop the hillock itself.
A senior official informed that the land survey officials visited Moti Dongor to carry out the exercise of identification of the land in question. Rough estimates available with the authorities have put the total land occupied by the migrants at Moti Dongor to around 24,600 square metres.
Incidentally, this area was calculated by the officials in around 2008-09 when Margao MLA Digambar Kamat was the chief minister and when the government had toyed up with the idea of rehabilitating the inhabitants.
Officials informed that after the land survey work is completed by the officials, the process may be taken to phase two, wherein the acquiring department may approach the Collector with a plea to put the land for acquisition.
It could not be ascertained which government department will acquire the land for the proposed rehabilitation of the Moti Dongor slum dwellers, though reports are doing the rounds that the job may be entrusted to the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) functioning under the Department of Urban Development.
Digambar, who has welcomed the Chief Minister’s announcement in his budget, has gone on record saying that the government would acquire the land at Moti Dongor and that the local comunidade will be paid the compensation in lieu of acquisition of the land.
The Moti Dongor slum has been a stronghold of Congress-turned-BJP Margao MLA Digambar Kamat during his political journey spanning around three decades, with the inhabitants rallying behind him election after election like a rock, by keeping political rivals at bay.
Comunidade red-flags plans, says will take legal recourse
MARGAO
The Aquem comunidade has raised strong reservations and red-flagged any plans to acquire the Moti Dongor land for rehabilitation.
Aquem comunidade attorney Celestin Norohna is on record saying the comunidade will take legal recourse to stop the government from going ahead with the rehabilitation.
“I am sure that Madgavkars will not accept the government’s rehabilitation plan for Moti Dongor. The comunidade will take the matter to the court when the government goes for the acquisition of the land at Moti Dongor,” Celestin told The Goan.
He added: “The matter is presently pending in the High Court after the inhabitants filed an appeal petition against the order of demolition passed by the South Goa Administrator of comunidades in 2013. When we are fighting the legal battle in the court, it is not proper for the government to rehabilitate the encroachers on the comunidade land with rehabilitation.”
