In a press statement on Friday, Uday Madkaikar, former mayor of the Corporation of the City of Panaji, made allegations that trees located on the Caranzalem-Miramar beach stretch are being poisoned with chemicals from the root level. He also said that an excavator is used illegally to level sand dunes at Caranzalem and he feels there is a similar conspiracy to destroy mangroves on the beach stretch. According to me, except for the poisoning of trees, the statement is valid. But why this statement was not made during his tenure as the same trees were dying even then? It takes a long time for a tree to die. Regarding the poisoning, I feel to verify the authenticity of his statement samples can still be collected and sent to various national laboratories to ascertain if these trees were poisoned. The press statement should have appeared in the local dailies and social media after verification by laboratory analyses. The excavator/JCB driver could have also been arrested at the time the filling was being done to camouflage the poisoning of trees.
