Monday, February 9, 2009

Nuvem locals spit fire at Goa's new highway alignment

The gram sabha of the Nuvem village panchayat which met on Sunday 8th February 2009, was a vociferous protest against the 4/6 lane road alignment proposed to be passing through the village.

The proposed alignment of the widening of the NH-17 stretch passing through Nuvem, is expected to displace plenty of villagers of Nuvem, especially villagers from Gorvotti ward, who are mostly engaged in dairy farming, and their livelihood is based on this traditional home based industry. Their cowsheds and also a large number of residential houses currently run the risk of being demolished to make way for the draconian alignment.

Incidentally some villagers allegedly pointed out to a larger nexus when they mentioned about a large property adjoining the proposed alignment plan being recently purchased by a private owner and the area has allegedly been marked as a settlement zone in the draft regional plan despite the same currently being part of cultivable fields.

The loud protests finally culminated in a resolution which the gram sabha passed unanimously, resolving that the Nuvem Village be bypassed in the alignment for the proposed laning of the NH-17.

Various other issues such as the megaproject issue at Pateapur in Nuvem also came up for discussion amidst heated arguments and the gram sabha members urged the panchayat members to come out clean on the entire issue.

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