About 3 months back, I published a letter highlighting my concern on increased real estate development including hill cutting in Nuvem village which I noticed during my errands to this village. I had requested Nuvem Panchayat and villagers to particularly keep a check on all this "development" and particularly protect the natural beauty including the hilly areas of this beautiful village to avoid turning it into a concrete jungle. So hence with the recent incident where people were protesting a multi housing project and an FIR filed on a prominent activist; this was something waiting to happen. Nuvem Panchayat seems to be giving permissions indiscriminately/carelessly without proper checks on water/FAR for multi housing units and also for villa projects with swimming pools. We need to preserve our villages and unfortunately many panchayats (including Nuvem Panchayat) either due to corruption or complacency or both; are the main reason for the degradation of our villages. Villagers need to keep a strict check on how their panchas and panchayat secretaries are functioning.
ARWIN MESQUITA, Colva
