MARGAO
All attention is focused on the Carmona panchayat for its stand on the controversial Raheja housing project as an Independent group headed by Sarpanch Winston Dias has taken charge of the panchayat body post-election.
The newly-elected sarpanch sounded non-committal on his stand when The Goan asked him for his and the new group’s stand on the housing project, which has been hanging fire in the village over a decade now. “We are a new body, an Independent group, elected by the people of Carmona. As far as the Raheja issue is concerned, the panchayat as a whole will take a call on the issue as and when it comes up at the meeting of the new body,” Winston told The Goan.
With a PIL filed by a group of Carmona villagers pending in the High Court vis-Ã -vis the controversial project and a new Independent group of panch members, some of whom were backed by village groups at the helm of affairs of the panchayat body, the new panchayat body may be called upon to take a call on the controversial issue sooner rather than later.
The outgoing panchayat body had granted approval for the construction licence for Raheja’s group housing project based on the technical clearance granted by the Town and Country Planning department, drawing protests from the local village groups, opposed to the housing project on a host of issues, including the issue that the housing project has been approved without addressing the concerns in respect of
a motorable road leading to
the property.
Incidentally, while the TCP department had all along maintained that the road bottleneck along the 70-metre stretch still remains a concern, senior TCP officials, however, had told the Mumbai-based realtor to submit a revised plan showing the traditional Cross as well as to stagger the construction of
the 88 bungalows over a
period of time to overcome the
bottleneck.
The Raheja housing project at Carmona village has indeed been hanging fire since 2007 when the Mumbai-based realtor had first planned to construct a mega housing colony comprising of a whopping 700-odd apartments in the sleepy village overlooking the picturesque River Sal.
Since then, the project had hit a road block over the absence of a 10-metre motorable road required for a mega housing project. The promoters revived the project around 2012, when it proposed a group housing project comprising of 88 bungalows and armed with a controversial government Amendment to the building rules, containing an exemption to a mandatory road provision for a stretch up to 70 metres.
The road width exemption, however, had drawn flak from the local villagers, who contended that the Amendment was tailor-made by the government around 2011 only to benefit the Raheja project.
