MAPUSA
The Mapusa farmers fighting under the banner of Shree Bodgeshwar Shetkari Sangh and three other NGOs tasted minor success after the Bombay High Court at Panaji issued notices to NGPDA, GPPDA, chief town planner and Goa government on a fresh PIL challenging the preparation of Land Use Map and Register for Mapusa and Panaji.
The petitioners have said that the government in 2018 had directed the NGPDA to make changes in the development plans (ODP) of Mapusa and Panaji and later, also issued a direction to prepare a fresh Land Use Map and Register which was illegal as there was no provision in the TCP Act for such action.
Incidentally, ODPs for both Mapusa and Panaji had been notified earlier on December 28, 2016.
Besides, the petitioners also found several major irregularities with the draft Land Use Maps and Registers which were placed for objections.
“In the case of the Mapusa Land Use Register, the names of around 1,300 farmers “ mostly tenanted farmers “ were missing from the register and had been substituted instead with the names of the landlords who originally owned these lands,” said Sanjay Barde, President of Shree Bodgeshwar Shetkari Sangh.
The farmers had protested against the exclusion of the names and even led a morcha to the Mapusa Municipal Council and made representations to the NGPDA.
Barde accused the directorate of municipal administration, the directorate of Panchayat and the TCP department for working in collusion to destroy the fields belonging to the farmers.
The other petitioner, Tenants Association of Camarcasanacho Bundh, had written to the NGPDA objecting to the errors in the existing ODP, especially the exclusion of forest patches, Khazan lands, tenanted fields and illegal rezoning of plots as C1 in various parts of Mapusa.
“We will use all democratic means to make our voices heard and fight till justice is done. If we have to come on the streets, we will do that too,” said John Lobo, General Secretary of the Tenants Association of Camarcasanacho Bundh.
He said the government was working slyly and were in a tearing hurry to push some decisions by keeping the citizens in the dark.
The Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA), one of two other two petitioners in the PIL, has also submitted a detailed statement of objections to the draft Panaji Land Use Plan on grounds that several parts of the register were completely wrong and attempted to import and legitimise changes already challenged in their earlier PIL which is pending before the High Court.
