PANAJI
Power Minister Nilesh Cabral will next week visit Mollem and hold discussion with those opposing the three projects cutting through protected forests there even as he claimed the issue is being “hyped up”.
Cabral said he along with PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar who represents the area will visit Mollem next week and discuss the issues being raised.
“Let’s see who comes and talks to us and what we have to explain,” Cabral said, adding that a few people were hyping up the issue.
The power minister, who incidentally is also holding the Environment portfolio, did not however touch on issues raised by greens that it is a national park and protected under forest laws.
“The three projects including the sub-station and laying of power transmission lines does not affect only Mollem village. They pass through many more villages. Some trees will have to be cut for the sub-station,” Cabral said, adding that they are for the benefit of the people themselves.
Nearly 70,000 trees are to be felled to make way for these three projects - Doubling of South-Western Railway line from Vasco to Castlerock, expansion of a national highway and laying of inter-State power transmission lines.
Opposition to these projects has been steadily growing in the State and elsewhere ever since they dubiously got the nod of the National Board for Wildlife during the lockdown in early April.
The Board had met via video-conferencing and was chaired by Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.
Environmentalists and wildlife enthusiasts accuse the Board of ignoring crucial aspects of the impact of these three projects and dozens of others across the country which were cleared hurriedly in the April video-conferencing meeting.
