Exactly 27 years ago, around 400 families from four villagessacrificed their land for the Selaulim water reservoir. Now, they live in hopefor the government to fulfill its promise of providing potable water in theirvillage.
Kushali Gaonkar an old farmer from the Waddem village said thatfor over 25 years, water has been a scarce resource in the area. “At the timewe were displaced from our land , we were promised a continuous supply ofdrinking water,” Gaonkar said.
Waddem is a man-made village where four villages wererehabilitated after the Goa government acquired the land for the Selaulim waterreservoir project in 1983. Agriculture sustains this village with a populationof five thousand.
The dam provides potable water to half of the Goa and forone major industrial estate, “These villagers sacrificed their land but theyhave not benefited from the project,” said Prabhakar Gaonkar former MLA ofSanguem constituency.
Gaonkar like other politicians blamed Congress government forthe state of affairs. Gaonkar was the BJP legislator for three tenures in ‘90s.
The Congress government in 1983 gave each family 400 squaremeters for construction of houses and 10,000 square meters for agriculture.However till date the land has not been transferred to the farmers’ namedespite cultivating it for 27 years. Anand Goankar said that it was notpossible to get a loan because the land could not be placed as surety. He said “It is the only asset we have to pawn to the bankers”.
The proposed market and hospital promised to the villagewere not inaugurated despite being constructed at a cost of several lakhs ofrupees.
Almost all the villagers cultivate sugarcane and the lack ofadequate supply of water results in huge loss of productivity.
As a stop gap desperate measure, villagers build a temporary‘bundh’ on Netravati and Naykini river every year after the monsoon to get thewater into their fields.
