Officials suggest this could be site of second fish meal plant
File photo of effluents discharged into water bodies from the Cuncolim IDC.
MARGAO
The countdown has begun with just six days to go for the crucial Special meeting of the Cuncolim Municipal Council scheduled on September 9.
Perhaps for the first time in recent times, all eyes are indeed focussed on the Special meeting of the Cuncolim Municipal Council convened by Municipality chief Landry Mascarenhas on September 9 morning.
What makes this meeting particularly significant is a proposal currently before the Council – an application seeking permission to construct a massive shed on a property located outside the Cuncolim Industrial Estate. Municipal and local sources suggest this could be the site of a second fish meal plant in Cuncolim – a project which has sparked concerns and opposition.
The meeting is all the more important considering the ongoing decade-long agitation by Cuncolkars demanding a shut down of existing fish meal plant and fish processing plants operating inside the Cuncolim Industrial estate.
Against this backdrop, the Cuncolim City Fathers have a clear task at hand and face a crucial decision – will they approve the application for the new plant despite failures to curb pollution at the Cuncolim IDC?
The Cuncolim civic chief had made his position unequivocally clear, “I stand with the people of Cuncolim, who have been agitating against the existing fish meal plant. I am opposed to any polluting industries being set up in Cuncolim”. He said the construction file will be placed before the Council meeting for deliberation and decision by the elected councillors.
He added: Cuncolim MLA Yuri Alemao too is against any fish meal plant considering the pollution issues plaguing the local populace.
Sources said the construction file was entered at the Cuncolim Municipal Council a couple of months back. However, the party, which had approached the Civic body with the file, was to submit additional documents such as the mutation of the property, besides the road access.
Interestingly, Leader of Opposition, Yuri Alemao, who represents Cuncolim in the Goa Legislative Assembly, had raised the issue at the monsoon session of the Assembly, signalling his opposition to the fish meal plant.
Bureaucrat-turned-politician Elvis Gomes, who hails from Cuncolim, has red flagged the proposed second fish meal plant. In his letter written to the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Gomes has raised why fish meal plants are being set up in Cuncolim, while urging the government to shift the proposal plant to an alternative place.
Social activists comprising of Dr Jorson Fernandes, Aviraj Desai and others had been waging a sustained battle against pollution at the Cuncolim Industrial estate over the decades. Time and again, the local residents had hit the streets to lodge their protest against pollution. Last time around in June, activists led by Aviraj Desai had staged a dharna at the memorial of a freedom fighter and a leading light of the Opinion Poll movement, late Shabu Desai to demand a stop to pollution at the Cuncolim IDC.
How fish meal project
landed in Cuncolim
A glance at the correspondence dated April 23, 2025 made by the Chief Executive Officer, Goa Investment Promotion & Facilitation Board Asvin Chandru, IAS to the promoter shows that the IPB Board at its 35th meeting held on November 3, 2023 had approved the project proposal for setting up of a fish meal production plant for the manufacturing of fish meal and fish oil at Quedem village in Quepem Taluka.
However, the promoter later moved the IPB again for change in project location for setting up a fish meal production plant from Quedem, Quepem to a new proposed location on an plot admeasuring 6,787 square metres and another plot admeasuring 12,213 square metres in Cuncolim on a total area admeasuring 19,000 square metres, which was later granted by the Board.
