MARGAO
In a last-ditch attempt to convince the Railways not to bulldoze with the track doubling project at Chandor and other places, the Goyant Kollso Naka delegation descended on the Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd on Saturday with a plea to review the project, including the works proposed to be carried out at Chandor and Davorlim.
A delegation of GKN entered a memorandum in the office of the Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd at Margao around Saturday noon, but officials had nothing to say over it till late Saturday evening.
The memorandum drew the attention of the RVNL officials to the track-doubling work carried out at the Nessai level crossing on October 28 without obtaining necessary permissions from the local village panchayat.
The memorandum pointed out that panchayat permissions are mandatory under the Goa Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, for any kind of construction activities within the panchayat area, and this mandate is followed strictly by all government authorities and other persons, irrespective of the ownership of the land.
That’s not all. GKN also drew the attention of the RVNL to the High Court order staying the double-tracking project in the protected area.
“The High Court of Bombay at Goa is hearing a matter challenging the proposed double-tracking through the Mollem National Park. The court has stayed all works on the double-tracking within the protected area until the next date of hearing in December. The double-tracking is a linear project, which implies that if any part of it cannot be constructed, the whole project will become useless and public funds wasted. It is not only mandatory in law, but also prudent and sensible not to spend public funds on any section of the double-tracking until all permissions are obtained,” the memorandum stated.
GKN further stated that the handbook of guidelines issued by the MOEF&CC in 2019 for effective implementation of Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, states under paragraph 11.2 on page 84 that ‘any proposal for linear projects such as roads, railway line, transmission line, etc need to be processed in entirety for comprehensive assessment of requirement of forest land and consequences if approval for any forest land is not granted.
The memorandum further referred to the Railway Board’s order dated 28/7/2020 along with relevant parts of the Pink Book that show the Railway Ministry has ordered that the double-tracking works be stopped, especially in view of the fact that the major portion of these are in the Western Ghats.
Referring to this, Abhijit Prabhudesai said the ongoing works are in violation of the orders of the Railways Board.
It was pointed out that the State Government is pushing these projects without the necessary clearances, without understanding the perception and anger of the people, against the orders of the Railways Board, in violation of MOEF guidelines and also the Goa Panchayati Raj Act 1994.
