MARGAO
The government’s ongoing exercise to demarcate boundaries of the properties belonging to the Tourism department along the Salcete coastal belt has reached Varca.
Surveyors of the department of Settlement of Land Records along with the wardens of the Tourism department had kick-started the survey along Salcete coastal belt on September 12.
After completing the exercise in coastal Cavelossim, the team has now descended on the Varca beach belt. An official informed that the team will proceed to Benaulim and later to Colva and Betalbatim, Majorda and Utorda.
While the ongoing survey has turned out a smooth affair, many say the exercise will assume significance in the two villages of Benaulim and Colva, where the Tourism department had acquired properties for development.
Take the case of Colva beach. Officials of the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) had around a fortnight ago inspected two huts based on a complaint that the structures have come up on Tourism department-acquired property.
Local fishermen, on the other hand, have contended that they have been carrying out their fishing activities along the coast over the decades much before tourism could come to Goa. They have pointed out that their ancestors have been carrying out fishing activities on the land in question to anchor their vessels, fishing nets, and storage of fish and salt for decades.
Sources in the know have suspected that the Tourism department has initiated the survey work to ascertain the status of the beach properties to develop the acquired land under the guise of giving a boost to tourism.
The beach survey team is yet to descend on Colva, but the fishermen have already raised questions over their displacement from their habitat.
Colva-based fishermen have set the tone by questioning whether the traditional fishermen will carry out fishing activities at Birla in Zuari Nagar or at Moti Dongor, Margao if they are displaced from their fishing habitat.
The department of Tourism has initiated the survey along the various beach stretches in the State on account of various encroachments by unscrupulous elements usurping the area belonging to the government.
The government has conveyed approval to survey the entire beach stretch so that the illegal encroachment could be identified & removed to preserve land belonging to the Tourism department.
