MARGAO
As the State Wetland Authority and the State Biodiversity Board celebrated the World Wetland Day at Raia and Curtorim centered the theme “It’s time for wetland restoration”, villagers in Benaulim silently watched earth moving machinery trampling on low-lying fields at Tolleaband to pave way for the western bypass.
Social activist and Petitioner in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the western bypass case, Royla Fernandes said the mother earth has been ripped open by excavators at Tolleaband. “It’s wetland day on the social media, but it has turned out a Fill-the-land day in reality at Benaulim”.
Benaulim villagers have been waging a sustained battle to protect the Tolleaband water bodies from being filled up to raise an earthen embankment to pave way for the western bypass. The locals have maintained that the Tolleaband water bodies is not just a wetland and a water catchment area, but plays host to a different species of migratory birds every year.
Dozens of trucks have been unloading mud along the bypass alignment over the last several days, even as the villagers are hoping against hope that their petition to the Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari would bear fruit and the bypass is built on stilts.
