PANAJI
Representatives of over a dozen comunidades on Thursday sent their representatives to Panaji to voice Opposition to the recently passed legislation to amend the Code of Comunidades and provide ownership of land to encroachers who have illegally built dwellings.
AAP's Benaulim MLA, Venzy Viegas who heads the Carambolim Comunidade and also attended the meeting said they have decided to hold a 'Monsoon Fellowship' of all Comunidades on August 24.
They will also meet the Governor Pushapati Raju to request him to withhold his 'consent' to the legislation, he said.
Viegas said, they have requested comunidades across Goa to hold managing committee meetings and pass resolutions against the bill over the next week and bring copies of these resolutions to be submitted at the monsoon fellowship on August 24.
The monsoon fellowship of comunidades will be held at the Xavier Institute for Historical Research, Porvorim where comunidade representatives from all over Goa are expected to come, he said.
A representatives of comunidades who met on Thursday at the initiative of Viegas have styled themselves as 'Save Goa, Save Goa's Comunidades'.
Already one comunidade -- Carambolim -- which Viegas heads as president, has passed a resolution at a general body meeting rejecting the legislation.
Viegas has called on all comunidade committees to adopt resolutions against the amendment, stating that once these are collected, the association will meet the Governor and submit a memorandum to him.
Viegas also said that the next course of action will be collectively decided by comunidade representatives at the August 24 fellowship.
He said the bill by which the government seeks to grant ownership of the land on which the illegal dwelling structures stand to the occupants is illegal as the land does not belong to the government but the comunidades.
"Entirely bypassing the comunidade bodies in this process and taking decisions of ownership of their land is illegal and outside the powers and jurisdiction of the government," Viegas said.
He added that comunidades are willing to accommodate the more modern needs of the State and the people living here but it has to be done in a legal way and not how the government is contemplating to do it via this "illegal" bill.
Meanwhile, Luis D'Souza, a component who represented the Goltim Comunidade of Divar island at the meeting said opposing the bill is crucial as it will further weaken the age old comunidade bodies and system which ancestors had preserved.
"It is the very essence of Goa. It has helped Goans for dozens of generations to ensure that both natural and human resources co-exist. We can't let this be destroyed," D'Souza said and appealed to all components of comunidades to join the fight and attend the 'monsoon fellowship' on August 24.
Soccoro Menezes, the attorney of Jua Comunidade said a team of lawyers are studying the legislation and advising them on a possible legal challenge to it.
The Goa legislative assembly passed the government-sponsored The Goa Legislative Diploma No. 2070 dated 15-4-1961 (Amendment) Bill, 2025, on August 7.
The bill seeks to amend the Code of Comunidade and provide legal remedy to grant ownership of land to occupants of illegal structures on Comunidade lands via a quasi-judicial process conducted by revenue officials.
