Paul Fernandes,TNN | May 4, 2014, 02.32 AM IST
PANAJI: Mining was considered as the backbone of the state's economy at one stage and lease operators reaped fortunes and other stake holders lesser windfalls from the lucrative activity, but comunidade leaders can only bemoan their losses.
The age-old institutions owned vast tracts of land throughout the state. Most of it was productive and agricultural land, and there were even comunidade villages. Sizeable parcels of it have been lost to mining, but the benefits hardly percolated to the gaunkars.
"The mining concessions covered huge areas and in a few cases almost the entire villages. This led to displacement of people, who hardly received any benefit, except in some cases the offer to operate a truck or provide some service at the mining site," said Andre Pereira, general secretary of the association of components of comunidades.
The lease holders executed agreements with the age-old institutions before commencing the activity and comunidades were issued nominal payments.
"The minerals should belong to the comunidades as they are the owners, but by virtue of concession the lease holders became proprietors, assuming that the government was the proprietor of the land," a comunidade leader said.
Former minister Sadanand Malik fired the salvo on Friday, after a long silence from comunidade leaders, asserting that the mineral wealth in comunidade land belongs to the hoary institutions and government has no power to grant a new lease.
But in the past, the lease holders availed the land directly from the comunidade or private land in comunidade villages. "There are some comunidade villages, such as Surla, Velguem, Sirsaim, Nadora in North Goa, and Colomba, Curpem in South Goa, where there was also private land. "In comunidade villages, the right of the private owner, who had obtained the comunidade land as an 'aforamento', was only on the surface and that of the minerals vested with the comunidades," an elderly gaunkar pointed out.
Comunidade leaders point out that even the Portuguese government had a false notion that the state owned the comunidade lands. But it proclaimed through Diploma Legislativo No. 2070 dated April 15, 1961, that the comunidades are absolute owners of their land.
According to Pereira, the code of comunidade did not foresee operation of mining leases in lands belonging to comunidades. The stress was only on agriculture, horticulture, enjoyment of the seasonal fruits and usufructs and housing, in marginal cases, in non-agricultural land.
The comunidade establishment has really no estimate of how much of its land is covered by mining nor the extent of it that is lost. The mining industry picked up momentum after 2005 due to the high demand for even the low grade ore. The activity brought greater prosperity to some sections of the society after the boom.
But farmers and horticulturists faced the brunt of the negative impact of mining, as their fertile paddy fields were inundated with slurry and cashew plantations were wiped off for extraction of iron ore.
The community has been struggling to secure compensation for the losses, and some lease operators have provided it to them. "Some are happy at receiving this support, but the suffering in mining areas of the dust and other pollution is much more," a gaunkar said.
The silence of the gaunkars over the past years is attributed to lack of awareness about their rights and comunidade affairs. "The laws were in Portuguese language and gaunkars had no support base," said Pereira.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Comunidades-clueless-about-land-lost-to-mining/articleshow/34608606.cms
