MARGAO
The Grievance Committee (GSWA) has on Thursday assured that discrepancies, if any, cited by the villagers of Curtorim, which are beyond the scope of Bio-diversity Heritage sites, will be removed before the notification of the sites.
Chairman of the Grievance Committee, GSWA retired Judge Desmond D'Costa, Goa State Bio-diversity Board Member Pradip Sarmokadam and other committee members descended at the Curtorim Panchayat hall on Thursday evening to hear the petitioners, including Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenco, who had lodged their objections to the Curtorim bio-heritage sites proposal.
After the hearing, Sarmokadam told 'The Goan' that whatever suggestions and objections received from the villagers at the Thursday hearing will be recommended to the Board for further action. He said the suggestions made by tenant associations and other stakeholders, highlighting discrepancies, if any, beyond the gazette notification and beyond the scope of the heritage site, will be removed. “Once the discrepancies, if any, are removed, the plan will be notified after the approval of the Board,” he added.
Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenco told the panel that he had supported the biodiversity heritage sites plan since the village needed protection. He, however, demanded to know how certain things, including water sports and others, had found a mention in the plan.
He said the process needed to be taken forward as per the notification after consulting the farmers or stop the process forthwith. He also spoke about retaining the names of the village lakes and not inventing names, insisting that the village name should be spelt as Curtorim.
Agnelo Azavedo and others drew the attention of the Grievance panel to how certain things had been included in the plan beyond the scope of the notification. The Chairman of the Curtorim Bio-diversity Committee, J Santan Rodrigues, took the platform to refute the allegations levelled against the Committee in the preparation of the plan. He demanded to know from the Chair whether the plan sent by the Committee had made any proposal for water sports, etc. In the objections filed before the Grievance committee, the villagers had called for the removal of water sports activities and eco-tourism sites from the plan.
