PANAJI
Cortalim MLA Alina Saldanha and Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho clashed over the issue of mini-India Park with the former insisting that the ‘illegal' panchayat permission should be scrapped while the latter claimed that the park was a ‘beautiful project'.
Speaking during the discussion on demands for grants to the panchayat department, Saldanha said that the previous panchayat of Cortalim-Quelossim had given a ‘provisional no objection certificate' to the project proponent subject to certain conditions. "The area is a wetland and is environmentally sensitive," she insisted.
In his reply Godinho asserted that the government was a continuous process and that once a permission is given, provisional or otherwise, subsequent panchayat bodies should stick to it. When the provisional permission was first given, Cortalim and Quelossim were in one panchayat. They have since been bifurcated into separate panchayats of Cortalim and Quelossim.
"Governance is a continuous process. Once an NOC is given legally it is as good and proper NOC, even if it is a provisional one. Such things should be left to the panchayat body. Why should we interfere in the local self-governaning bodies," Godinho said adding the matter is currently being dealt with by the courts.
At this, Saldanha rose up and asked if the subsequent panchayat body was supposed to carry forward with a decision even if it was illegal. "If the previous panchayat commits an illegality, is the new one supposed to continue with the illegality or is it supposed to set things right," Saldanha asked.
Defending himself, Godinho then brought out the argument of jobs that the controversial project will offer. "It has all the other permissions. It is a very beautiful project and an environmentally friendly project. It is just a flotilla for mini-India Park. It is a project which will solve the unemployment issue and offer many jobs. On one side we are saying jobs are not available and that people are going abroad on another we are opposing this. If we start opposing everything then how will we create employment?" Godinho asked.
At this, Saldanha remarked that the project has no permissions from the authorities and "cannot be allowed to go forward."
The project in Quelossim by Movaj enterprises is the subject matter of a petition filed by the Goa Foundation in the Bombay High Court at Goa as well as separately by three villagers in the National Green Tribunal.
The Goa Foundation has argued that the site in question falls in a CRZ area, and the Investment Promotion Board, which has granted permission to it, has no powers to do so if the lands in question are in no development zones of the
CRZ area.
