Taking the liberty to post this article by Claude Alvares in this connection. this mastermnd schemester has set his eyes on the Tivim Land again in connivance with the various officials. By the way ask the old residents around Mapusa church how he acquired the hom of the two maiden sisters who lived in Bombay without paying them for it. Even Governor Sidhu on his Republic Day address was pushing for acquiring Goan land for Mopa Airport - we all know why that Airport is being pushed forward and who has invested in purchasing land in the area. Ranes are busy bequeathing Land in Bambolim for the Israelis for a Hospital to get the kickbacks. None of these politicians nor the Governor care for Goa or Goans.
*Stealing Land for the Tivim Stadium * *CLAUDE ALVARES* exposes how paddy fields and comunidade land were grabbed to help GCA, a private body The Government of Goa has today become the single biggest thief of private and Comunidade properties in the state. A recent case is the acquisition of land for the International Cricket Stadium, a pet project of Dayanand Narvekar and the Goa Cricket Association, to be located at Tivim. The acquisition involved two classes of land. The first was a bunch of paddy fields just outside Mapusa town. Though the sales and services report of the enquiry officer (land acquisition) indicated that the compensation to be paid to the farmers would have to be in the region of nearly Rs6 crore, the department on its own decided internally to reduce the amount to less than Rs1 crore. This is wholesale misappropriation of property from ordinary people who are unable to fight back. An area of 44,000 sq m of the land acquired for the cricket stadium at Tivim was identified as forest by the Sawant and Karapurkar Expert Committees. Once the Goa Foundation drew this to the attention of the government in February 2007, it imposed a clampdown on any work in the area. Media reports had indicated that Mr Narvekar wanted the tenders for construction to be issued in January 2007 itself. The Goa Government then filed an application for diversion of the forest land under the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. As per existing laws concerning proposals that involve destruction of natural forests, the following conditions must be met if the Ministry of Environment & Forests is to approve the proposal: (a) Payment by the developer of Net Present Value (NPV) of the diverted forest land, which in the Tivim case amounted to Rs30.5 lakh; (b) Payment towards compensatory afforestation, which in the Tivim case was another Rs4 lakh; and (c) Handover of equivalent land for the compensatory forest to be raised. The Sports Department coughed up the huge amount of Rs34.5 lakhs, thus meeting conditions (a) and (b). Note that this money came from the public exchequer, and not from the pockets of the Goa Cricket Association, a private body, for which the backdoor acquisition was intended. Condition (c) was more difficult since land is a scarce commodity in Goa. In the case of the Tivim cricket stadium, the Goa government simply stole the land that was required to put up for compensatory afforestation! Mr Narvekar on his own admission in writing said he was “successful” in giving 44,000 sq m of land from the Comunidade of Sirsaim to the Forest Department for afforestation. How was this achieved? On 24 July 2007, the Comunidade Attorney issued a letter to the Conservator of Forests which stated that the Sirsaim Comunidade “has resolved to give an area of 44,000 sq m of its vacant land situated at Sirsaim near Thivim station bearing Survey No 12 for forestation”. While the approval of the Comunidade was conveyed to the government by the Attorney on 24 July 2007, the notice for the meeting of the Comunidade of Sirsaim to be held on 19 August to approve the handover only appeared in the Goa Gazette on 2 August 2007. Since there was no quorum on 19 August, the meeting was abandoned. However, on the same day, the Managing Committee met and approved the proposal! (Incidentally, the very same managing committee is now facing a High Court enquiry for forgery of documents, illegal allotment of over 300 plots, misappropriation of funds and other irregularities.) Thus the decision to handover 44,000 sq m of land of Sirsaim Comunidade without receiving even a token consideration was taken almost one month after the Attorney had not only anticipated the decision but also conveyed it in writing to the Forest Department. Under the Code of Comunidades, there is no provision in the Code for handing over free even one square metre of land (much less 44,000 sq m) to the government or anyone else. Comunidades may issue land on lease to the government but no land can be “distrained” permanently. In no case can land be handed over without a consideration. Despite being aware of the provisions of the Code, the Revenue Department issued an order on 15 July 2008 conveying approval of the government for the grant of land by the Comunidade of Sirsaim to the Forest Department “in lieu of equal land acquired by the government to build the cricket stadium at Tivim.” The words “in lieu of” appear nonsensical in the context since the land at Tivim had been acquired under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act and belonged to the government, whereas the land of the Comunidade of Sirsaim could never belong to the government except by land acquisition. The Revenue Department in its letter of 15 July refers to the Tivim land as “private forestation of the Forest Department.” How do senior bureaucrats write such rubbish? Only one last obstacle still remained. The Forest Conservation Act 1980 insists that the land for compensatory afforestation must be mutated in the records and the Forest Department must be shown as its sole owner. Accordingly, the Forest Department wrote to the Talathi of Sirsaim regarding the mutation. The Comunidade wrote to the Talathi requesting him to show the name of the Forest Department under the “other rights” column, as the Comunidade still considered itself the owner of the plot. However, this was rejected by the Forest Department in February 2008. Without further ado, the name of the Forest Department was now shown in the occupant’s column! Thus overnight, without payment of any consideration, deed of conveyance or any of the laborious processes of land acquisition, 44,000 sq m of Sirsaim Comunidade land became the property of the Goa Government! This land was now presented to the Ministry of Environment as the land that would be used for the purpose of replacing the forest proposed to be destroyed at Tivim. More surprises? Survey No. 12 of the Sirsaim Comunidade – of which the 44,000 sq m is a part – is subject of a legal agreement of 25 years standing between the Forest Department and the Comunidade for purposes of raising social forestry. The agreement was signed in 1986 and expires in 2011. The same land that is supposed to have a social forest was now being reassigned to grow another forest! Maybe the second forest is to be located in the stratosphere, above the present one, so that we can confirm that it is indeed growing in Goa! So 4.5 ha of extremely rich, irreplaceable, dense forest will make way for people who will occasionally play games for entertainment with pieces of wood called bats and stumps made from felled trees, in order that sponsors can make money and Mr Dayanand Narvekar can once again sell any number of tickets for cricket tamashas with a little more confidence since the stadium is just a few hundred metres from his house. This development circus, in normal course, would not be permitted by any group of vigilant citizens. That the proposal for the stadium has reached this stage indicates how deep is the slumber of the people of Tivim (who stand to lose their forest) and Sirsaim (who stand to lose their land). On 19 November 2009, the Forest Department issued a gazette notification officially declaring the 44,000 sq m of Sirsaim Comunidade as the property of Government and – though there is not a single tree standing on the plot – constituted it as a “forest” under the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Amen. *Message: 10 Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 12:20:09 +0530 From: "floriano" <[email protected]> To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Goanet] Deplorable Goan Politicians Message-ID: <9533bf7dd9e043ab9dc10d33bc50b...@home> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original By God Eddie, you want to re-invent the wheel ! Remember the Ticket-gate scam of Dayanand Narvekar? What happened to him? He is now building a brand new cricket stadium in Tivim's agricultural fields and part of the declared forest. And he has been voted in despite all of this and more. Cheers floriano goasuraj www.goasu-raj.org 9890470896 PS1: I suggest you go thro' goasuraj constitution and the Road Map available above for download PS2: Let us GOANS fight Dirty Politics and Dirty Politicians. Let us change the OPERATING SYSTEM. Let us join the 'PPS' brigade. Let us adorn our 2/4-wheelers with 'PPS' stickers. Let us show solidarity with the movement with conviction that ' We Shall Overcome ' PPS: PEOPLE for POLITICAL SANITY .... Goa's Need of the Hour [Note: Stickers now available at CHAMPS Sports Shoppe - MAPUSA (Clinic Road) - PANJIM (Opp. Municipal Garden) - MARGAO (New Market) ----- Original Message ----- From: "manuel tavares" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 8:14 AM Subject: [Goanet] Deplorable Goan Politicians All of us who have been writing on the net about the corrupt politicians and other corrupt officials currently responsible for running the various aspects of life in Goa continue to hammer at the rampant Corruption and Dishonesty of the political Strata in Goa. This has not dissuaded these Corrupt Scoundrels from perpetrating their deeds which they continue with impunity. I think we now have to resort to other tactics. I would like to suggest that we publish the deeds of these Corrupt operatives naming them personally and exposing their corruption and the financial rewards they would expect to receive from each of their corrupt dealings so that the whole of Goa will know the extent of their deeds and throw them out of office at the earliest possible opportunity. Any other Suggestions????? Regards. Manuel ( Eddie) Tavares. *
