AGNELO PEREIRA
MAPUSA
It’s not there yet, but Saligao Comunidade has all the trappings of going the controversial Serula way in Bardez.
The president of Saligao Comunidade last week had said 76 structures have popped up illegally in the fields belonging to the comunidade, besides reporting about 16 cases of land filling activity.
However, it’s not clear yet whether an allegedly illegal commercial project, which has come up in a comunidade tenanted field in Saligao, is one of the illegal structures that the comunidade president was referring to.
The Saligao comunidade has constructed a commercial project which is allegedly unauthorized, and therefore illegal, in a tenanted field in Survey No 202/2/3/4 without obtaining necessary permissions and licences.
The Saligao comunidade, however, is not alone in the controversial activity. Politicians of varied hues and bureaucrats appear to have landed tacit support to the activity.
A resident in the village, Eleuterio Fernandes, shot the first complaint letter against the illegality to various government authorities -- administrator of comunidades (North), TCP Mapusa and Deputy Collector, Mapusa on November 8, 2017.
Fernandes said the project does not have any license and approval for the construction, either from TCP or the panchayat.
“The then attorney of Saligao Comunidade (now president), who is also the contractor of the project, has violated all rules and regulations as laid by the government and the court from time to time,” Fernandes said.
While the administrator and the deputy collector sat on the complaint for reasons best known to them, the then Deputy Town Planner, Mapusa wrote to the sarpanch/secretary of Saligao village panchayat to investigate the matter and initiate action.
Ironically, the sarpanch ignored the letter for several months.
When the wheels of justice failed to move, Fernandes filed a complaint in the Saligao panchayat on December 8, 2018.
However, once again the sarpanch made no effort to stop the construction work of the alleged illegal commercial project.
Fernandes then approached the Deputy Director of Panchayats (DoP) under section 66 (5) of the Panchayati Raj Act.
Interestingly, in spite of the direction issued by the Dy DoP on February 28, 2018 it took
the BDO of Bardez five months to conduct a site inspection of the illegal construction.
Every time the inspection was sought to be postponed for flimsy reasons like non-availability of vehicle or secretary falling ill.
In the meantime, the construction of the project went on in full steam without the mandatory licences and permissions.
Finally, the site inspection was carried out in July 2018 and the report mentioned that the construction did not have any TCP permissions or panchayat construction licence.
The BDO has served the copies of the site inspection report to Saligao panchayat and the deputy director of panchayat, but for the last eight months no action has been forthcoming against the alleged illegal construction.
A reticent Saligao Sarpanch, Lafira Gomes, said she was not aware if the earlier panchayat had issued any licences to the comunidade.
“But in our time we have not issued any licences to the comunidade,” Gomes told The Goan appearing all at sea on the subject.
When contacted, a furious President of Saligao Comunidade, Austin Da Gama challenged The Goan to write about numerous illegal constructions that have popped up in the village.
“People are targeting the comunidade, but nobody is questioning when people are building structures on comunidade land,” he lamented.
When questioned whether the comunidade had all permissions to construct the commercial project, the comunidade president said he had submitted all the plans in the TCP.
“In any case, we cannot build such a huge structure overnight without other departments in the know,” Da Gama said, clearly indicating that government departments were in cohorts with the comunidade.
An audacious Saligao President further said that nobody can demolish the structure.
“The least they can do is fine us. They cannot demolish the structure,” he said.
Trying to defend the project, he said the area where the structure has come up was a settlement zone.
