MARGAO
With instances of rampant land filling along Salcete coastal belt coming to light on the social media, Benaulim MLA Venzy Viegas on Thursday led a delegation of the village panchayat secretaries to the South Goa district Collector to work out a solution, demanding that the Revenue Department comes up with an App to pave way for citizens to register land filling cases for necessary action.
Senior Town Planner Ranjit Borkar also joined the delegation to the district Collector as the MLA drew the attention of the district revenue head that the mechanism in place to stop illegal land filling has failed to bear the desired fruit.
He also demanded to know from the Collector whether any government authority is willing to take suo moto action in the land filling cases and whether any authority has taken complaints lodged by public spirited citizens to its logical conclusion.
After the meeting, the Benaulim MLA told the media that illegal land filling of agricultural land is going on in full swing in the coastal village, but lamented there’s no mechanism in place to stop the illegality.
“Instances have come to light on social media that debris is being dumped in agricultural land for the purpose of land filling, but no authority is acting to stop the illegalities.
The flying squad comes to the site and issue stop work order, but land filling is back at the very same site after 24 hours,” he said, while demanding to know whether there is no fear amongst the violators that they will be hauled up for the violations.
“There is absolutely no fear of the law of the land. The concerned department is not working to stop the illegal land filling. Somehow, the Chief Minister’s intention to protect agricultural land from being filled up is missing,” he said.
To a question, Venzy said the district Collector has assured that the village talathis will be told to initiate action in the matter by conducting a survey of the areas in their jurisdiction which has been filled up illegally.
