MARGAO
Armed with the High Court order which has gone in their favour in their near decade old battle against the stone crushers operating in the village, Sao Jose de Areal villagers on Tuesday demanded closure of all the 43 stone crushing units if they do not poses the mandatory conversion sanads.
The villagers under the banner of Sao Jose de Areal Villagers Union have decided to knock the doors of the district magistrate and the village panchayat to shut down the stone crushers.
The High Court had last week directed the South Goa Collector to identify the stone crushing units operating without conversion sanads in Areal and issue notices calling upon them to either place on record the conversion sanads or set a stipulated time to apply for the same. The exercise of issuance of notices to the units is to be carried out within a period of six weeks.
Addressing the media, Areal villager Freddy Travasso said while the district collector will issue notices to the 43 units to produce their conversion sanads, he demanded that those units not having the sanads should be shut down immediately. “We request the Collector to immediately act against units operating without the sanads and stop their operations at the earliest since they are highly polluting and destructive to the environment,” he said.
The residents vowed to continue their struggle to save the village and future generations from the adverse effects and environmental destruction from the quarries, crusher units and other threats that they have been facing and fighting against.
While welcoming the High Court order passed by Justices N M Jamdar and Pritthviraj K Chavan, Freddy said the villagers have finally achieved success against the patently illegal government notification exempting the stone crushers from conversions after a long battle stretching for almost nine years.
The Sao Jose de Areal Villagers Union had knocked the doors of the High Court in 2009 with a plea to stop the stone crusher units on grounds they did not have the conversion sanads, besides other illegalities.
However, the then government quickly came to the aid of the illegal crusher units, many of which are located on Comunidade lands and eco-sensitive zones, by issuing a notification on March 2, 2009, exempting them from conversion with retrospective effect. Another villager Nelson Mascarenhas said the village continues to suffer due to the operations of the 43 units which are highly polluting.
