THIS LAND IS OUR LAND

05/08/2012 THIS LAND IS OUR LAND How the politician- bureaucrat nexus is looting comunidade land FREDDY FERNANDES teamherald@ herald- goa. com PANJIM: For those who may have not spared a thought about what constitutes the ethos of Goa, Goan identity, as it were, or, for that matter, what is the foundational essence of Goan culture from where ideas, and aspirations spring forth – it is the land. This land of the people, especially “ community lands” are today under serious threat from a systematic assault by Goa’s own political class, together with a servile every obliging bureaucracy. Though the ruling and opposition parties may tear each other on various issues, in one of the most shocking developments in Goa’s post- Liberation history, there is an unholy consensus and great alacrity in legalising all illegal dwellings on comunidade land till June 15, 2000. Further in the current Session it implies that there are new moves to regularise illegal structures on comunidade land till date. It is mind boggling to understand how anything illegal can ever be legalised. That this is a consensus to loot land is clear from the statistics. Officials in government revealed that an appalling 80 per cent of the illegal dwellers, who have applied for legalisation, are migrant non- Goans who form formidable vote banks for nearly every politician in each constituency of the State, who effectively neutralise the Goan vote in crucial close contests. Only 20% of the claimants maybe Goans, whose cases can be considered. That government plans to regularise around 7,000 illegal structures on comunidade land > Continued on pg 8 THE MODUS OPERANDI Migrant vote banks allowed to put up shanties with political blessings The structures are cast into masonry. Electricity and water connections follow. House numbers are given to them in connivance with panchayats. Illegal dwellers are given residence certificates, though political masters, though they are seasonal residents. Illegal squatters acquire ration cards. In the final stage they acquire voter identity cards to stake their claims to “ goanness” and to community land. http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/epapermain.aspx?queryed=9&eddate=8/5/2012