MARGAO
Joy as well as anxiety was writ large on the faces of farmers of Rawanfond cultivating the agricultural fields opposite the Margao railway station.
The farmers were all smiles as a mechanical harvester went about harvesting the crop as the fields recorded a bumper yield of paddy this season. Anxiety and fear, however, were writ large on their faces since their plea to return to them the agricultural fields of their ancestors, acquired around a decade and a half ago for a transportation centre, has so far fallen on deaf ears of successive governments.
If farmers elsewhere might have complained of moderate paddy yield this season, these beleaguered farmers make no secret of the fact that their hard labour in the very fields was acquired by the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) around 15 years ago.
As a mechanical harvester worked overtime in the fields on Friday, one could sense joy and happiness amongst the farmers as they filled up empty sacks with the paddy coming out from the harvester, as they all seemed hoping against hope that the new dispensation would listen to their prayers and return the fields to them.
Says farmer Claudius Dias: “By God’s grace, we have got a good yield from these fields, which we have been cultivating over the centuries by our ancestors. We are all happy that the harvest was good when the yield has not been up to the expectations of farmers elsewhere.”
He, however, made a fervent plea to the government headed by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to sympathetically consider the long-pending demand of the farmers for the return of their fields. “I would like to make a humble plea to the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to please save our fields and return them to us for cultivation. The government can shift the proposed projects, including a transportation centre to a space not used for agriculture,” he said.
He added: “The Chief Minister is doing a great job by promoting agriculture in the State with a host of schemes for the farmers. We hope the CM would mete out justice for all of us if the fields acquired by the GSUDA are all retained for agriculture.”
Saying that the farmers are contributing to food production, Claudius said the farmers eke a living on these fields. “We request the government not to bring any project on the acquired fields, but retain the green patch of land in the area for posterity by reverting the land to us,” he added.
Farmers from the Rawanfond and Aquem-Baixo have been waging a sustained agitation over the years to save their fields which were acquired by GSUDA around a decade and a half ago. The farmers along with the residents of Navelim and Aquem-Baixo had hit the streets over a decade ago after the PWD had drawn up plans to rehabilitate the kiosk owners displayed from the Rawanfond traffic junction, in the fields, forcing the then government to beat a hasty retreat.
The farmers again resorted to agitation around two years ago when the Margao Municipality planned to dump dry and plastic waste on the acquired fields when the government took up bio-remediation of the Sonsodo legacy dump.
