Revenue Minister Jennifer Monseratte has a duty to please explain as to how scarce Goa land is being blatantly sold to all and sundry instead of being preserved to cater to the needs of Goans.
Can she please explain as to how and why she is trying to allow temple land in Survey no 214/9 at Mandrem property admeasuring 9033 sq mts to be given on a 99 year lease to a politically well connected Delhi businessman Shikar Kumar. Jennifer do you know Shikar Kumar? Government land around Zuarinagar is also reportedly being sold arbitrarily while the Revenue Minister also desperately wants Deputy Speaker Isidore Fernandes’s son Raymond as an Awal Karkun under her despite his fake degree. Today in Goa the Revenue portfolio is many times more lucrative than Town & Country Planning and even Mining. But the Divine curses will also be manifold. It may be too late for those looking to benefit from a quick windfall. It is totally unacceptable, reckless and irresponsible that our very cherished and scarce God given land should be treated as a throwaway commodity and sold for personal gain and greed rather than for the common good. Every Minister and the Government have a fundamental duty to act in the best interests of its citizens and not to be rubber stamping real estate deals or any other deals that are not in the State’s interest or for the common good. A nation that destroys its land destroys itself. Aldo Leopold, an American scientist and ecologist observed ‘we abuse land because we treat it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may then begin to use it with love and respect.’ ‘Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend. You cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left’. Margaret Mitchell a famous novelist and journalist wrote ‘Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for this is the only thing in the world that lasts, this is the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for and worth dying for’. Aires Rodrigues Advocate High Court C/G-2, Shopping Complex Ribandar Retreat, Ribandar – Goa – 403006 Mobile No: 9822684372 Office Tel No: (0832) 2444012 Email: [email protected] Or [email protected] You can also reach me on Facebook.com/ AiresRodrigues Twitter@rodrigues_aires www.airesrodrigues.com
