MARGAO
There seemed no stop to questions raised over the plans to accord biodiversity heritage site status to the lakes in Curtorim village.
After the farmers' associations raised objections to the draft notification to accord biodiversity heritage site status to the lakes, citizens have flooded the office of the Member Secretary, Goa Biodiversity Management Board with questions over the proposal.
In a letter to the Biodiversity Board, a villager Agnelo Azavedo sought to know the advantages of having BHS in Curtorim, its benefits for the village, the villagers, the farmers and other stakeholders.
He further sought to know the criteria adopted to declare any property as a BHS and whether the criteria have been followed while proposing all the properties in the BHS of Curtorim.
Pointing out that Curtorim village plays host to more than 10,000 population, Azavedo questioned how many people from the population were involved in formulating the Curtorim BHS. He raised the question of whether all the property owners like the Communidade, which is a major owner of the fields of Curtorim, the tenants and other individual property owners were intimated before including their properties in the draft of the BHS and whether any NOC was taken from the property owners to include their properties in the draft of the BHS.
“Was any independent committee formed to draft the Curtorim BHS plan? If yes, were any farmers from the different Tenants/Farmers Associations/Groups taken on board the Committee? Was there any member of the Communidade, the major owner of the areas in the draft of the BHS, on board the said committee? If yes, who are they and what is the contribution of all the above in formulating the BHS draft," Azavedo sought to know.
He has also requested the Biodiversity Board to provide all the relevant details and correspondence between the VP Curtorim and the GSBB from the time the then Sarpanch of VP Curtorim wrote to the Board on 20/06/2015 to declare BHS in Curtorim, till date, to the Office of the VP Curtorim.
He has asked for details such as the initial areas which were shown in the initial draft of the BHS, the reasons for the same, and the areas that were later removed or deleted from the draft of the BHS and the reasons for the same.
