MARGAO
Goa government’s plea to include only 30 villages instead of 99 villages as Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) in the Western Ghats has found favour with the Central government.
BJP leader and former minister Ramesh Tawadkar said the government has accepted the recommendation made by the Goa government headed by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to notify only 30 villages as ESAs.
Addressing the media, Tawadkar said the Centre has accepted the government’s plea to reduce the number of villages from 99 to 30 as ESAs. “We have received information that instead of the 99 villages, only 30 villages of Sattari (13), Dharbandora/Sanguem (16) and Canacona (one) will be notified as ecologically sensitive areas of the State”, he said.
The former sports minister complimented the Goa government and Sawant effectively taking up the matter with the Centre.
Sawant in his letter dated July 9 to Union Minister Prakash Javadekar had expressed government’s reservations on the draft notification of ESAs of the Western Ghats.
The CM had pointed out that out of the total geographical area of 3702 sq. kms of Goa, the State is hardly left with just 342 sq. Kms area (only 9.2 %, which can be made use for growth and development.
In addition, the CM had pointed out that the total forest and tree cover of the State is more than 66 per cent, because the people of Goa have culturally and historically been protecting the environment and Forest.
“To further restrict activities in non-qualifying 66 villages would hamper activities in these village, which are otherwise permissible by law and would cause grave injustice specially to the people of these villages and generally to the people of the State of Goa”, he said.
In fact, the Chief Minister had said that he had found it illogical and irrational to include even a single village beyond these 30 villages in the ESAs notification of Western Ghats, adding that it would also not be legally sustainable to include any of these villages not meeting the criteria of the Kasturirangan report.
