Prakash Kamat
Panaji-Date: 5th June, 2020
From
Residents of Melauli and neighbouring villages of Sattari taluka, Goa,
c/o ,
Shubham Shivolkar
, Melauli, Sattari taluka, Goa – 403506
Tel: 8208666011
To
1. His Excellency, The Governor of Goa,
Raj Bhavan, Dona Paula, Panaji, Goa - 403004
Email - governor.goa@gov.in
2. The Hon’ble Union Minister for Human Resources Development,
Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi – 110001
Email – minister.hrd@gov.in
3. Shri Pramod Sawant, The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Goa,
Ministers’ Block, Secretariat, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - cm.goa@nic.in
4. Shri Vishwajit Rane, The Hon’ble MLA of Valpoi Constituency,
Office of the Minister for Health, Craftsmen Training & Women & Child Development,
206, Ministers’ Block, Secretariat, Alto- Porvorim, Bardez, Goa 403521
Email – mla.valpoi.gvs@gov.in, healthminstergoa@gmail.com
5. The Chief Secretary of Goa,
The Secretariat, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - cs-goa@nic.in
6. The Secretary (Revenue),
The Secretariat, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - -goa@nic.in
7. The Collector, North Goa District,
The North Goa Collectorate Building, Panaji, Goa- 403001
Email – coln.goa@nic.in
8. The Director, Directorate of Technical Education,
DTE Building, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - dir-dte.goa@nic.in
9. The Dy Conservator of Forests, North Goa Division,
The Forest Department, Ponda, Goa - 403401
Email – dcfnorth-forest.goa@nic.in
10. The Chief Engineer, Water Resources Department,
Sinchai Bhavan, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email – ce-wrd.goa@nic.in
11. The Sarpach/Secretary,
Village Panchayat of Guleli, Guleli, Sattari, Goa - 403506
Email – vpguleli@gmail.com
SUB: REQUEST TO DROP THE ILL-ADVISED PROPOSAL TO BUILD IIT GOA AT MELAULI VILLAGE IN SATTARI TALUKA
Dear Sir/Madam,
This letter is to inform you that we, the affected villagers of Melauli and neighbouring villages of Sattari taluka completely oppose the illegal, ill-advised and catastrophic proposal to construct the IIT Goa complex in sy no 67/1, Melauli village, Sattari taluka. We also strongly condemn the underhand, unconstitutional, coercive and secretive steps being taken by the Government to totally displace us by usurping our common lands, without even informing or consulting us, in this cursed attempt to forcibly construct IIT Goa on our lands. The following brief facts and arguments are placed before you, which overwhelmingly and irrefutably prove that this proposal is doomed from the beginning, and is anti-people and anti-development from all angles:
1. THREE WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES WITHIN 3 KM – UNIQUE IMPORTANCE OF THE ONLY FOREST PATCH IN MELAULIM VILLAGE AS A CRITICAL WILDLIFE CORRIDOR
The land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village has unique and exceptional importance for the Wildlife of Goa in view of its strategic location. Melauli village borders the Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary on its South-West side, has the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary less than 700 m from its Eastern boundary, while Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary lies 2 km to the South-East of Melauli. This village is therefore of the highest importance to the Wildlife of Goa among the villages outside the Wildlife Sanctuaries of Goa. The land bearing sy no 67/1 has the best continuous stretch of forests and cultivated lands in Melauli village, which is teeming with wildlife of all kinds, to the extent that deer, bison, etc can be seen in this forest all throughout the day and night. The land bearing sy no 67/1 of Melauli village is therefore a Critical Corridor that must be protected and conserved at any cost.
2. PROHIBITED ACTIVITY IN WG ESA
The village of Melauli is included in the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change Notification dated 27.2.2017 (commonly called Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Areas Notification, published on 28.2.2017 in the Official Gazette of India, Extraordinary, No 598, Part-II, Section 3, sub-section (ii)) as an Ecologically Sensitive Area of the Western Ghats, as recorded on page 129 of the Notification. Paragraph 3, (1), (d) of the Notification prohibits all new and expansion projects of building and construction with built up area of 20,000 square meters and above in the Ecologically Sensitive Areas of the Western Ghats. The IIT project is therefore prohibited in the village of Melauli.
3. UNIDENTIFIED AND UNPROTECTED FORESTS
Sy no 67/1, Melauli village has large stretches of forests of critical importance for both wildlife and our people. The forests on these lands are our community forests which sustain our lives by providing water recharge for our springs, timber and other forest produce, soil generation, soil fertility, environmental security, ecological balance and by reducing wildlife conflict. These community forests must be first identified and demarcated so that they are protected under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 as directed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the Godavarman Case and committed by Goa Government before the Courts. There are also large plantations of the indigenous communities within sy no 67/1, Melauli village, which are contiguous to the forests and provide continuity of habitat, food and shelter to the rich wildlife of the adjoining forest patches.
Unfortunately, the Thomas Committee and the other Committees appointed earlier to identify the unidentified forests in the State of Goa have not visited sy no 67/1 of Melauli village, Sattari taluka. Due to the haste with which the IIT project is being pushed, there is an imminent threat to these unidentified forests and other trees of sy no 67/1, Melauli village. It is therefore essential that the forests and other trees in sy no 67/1, Melauli village must be identified and demarcated immediately.
4. BIODIVERSITY OF MELAULI VILLAGE
The land bearing sy no 67/1 of Melauli village is the most important reservoir of biodiversity in this village. Most of Melauli is heavily cultivated by the indigenous communities and the forests in sy no 67/1 of Melauli are the only place in the village which provide essential biodiversity services for the entire village. The land bearing sy no 76/1 of Melauli village is extremely rich in biodiversity, with exceptionally rich populations of bison, leopards, pangolins, slender loris, 5 species of deer (sambhar, barking deer, spotted deer, mouse deer and four-horned antelope), civets, giant squirrel, flying squirrel, snakes including the King Cobra, all kinds of rare birds and other fauna of the Western Ghats, etc. The floral diversity of this land is also incomparable on account of the presence of both forests as well as exceptionally rich laterite plateaus within this land. It is therefore most essential that this land is conserved as it is, without changing the land use, in order to conserve the biodiversity of Goa and the Western Ghats.
5. LANDS BEARING SY NO 67/1, MELAULI ARE COMMONS, FULLY OCCUPIED & INHABITED BY VILLAGERS OF MELAULI
The lands surveyed under sy no 67/1, Melauli village are fully inhabited, possessed and used by the villagers residing in the Murmune, Shel, Maingine, Dhada and other wards of Melauli village and also by some of the residents of neighbouring villages. Over 2,500 villagers have direct rights over this land - some in terms of their cashew, mango, jackfruit and other plantations on the slopes; others by virtue of paddy, coconut, betel nut, vegetable, spices and other cultivation in the lower valleys (endowed with natural springs); and all the residents in terms of the forests and forest produce, grazing lands, unique medicinal plants found on the plateau, nallahs used for seasonal fishing, and, most importantly, (1) the critical, unalienable ground water recharge by the plateau giving rise to our fragile springs and water security, and (2) ecological services which are responsible for our environmental security.
These are the common lands of our village which are wrongly recorded in the survey records as occupied by the Government of Goa, since the entire land is inhabited and occupied by us and our ancestors since times immemorial. The entire land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village is called ‘Deula Moll’ by us, indicating that this land was traditionally occupied and cultivated as village commons under the auspices of the Temple located at the bottom of the slopes of sy no 67/1, Melauli village. From the earliest memories of our elders and their elders before them, most of the land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village was cultivated for growing cereals and lentils such as nachno, udit, kudit, pakot, etc until early 1970s, when people shifted to cultivating cashew and other fruit trees on this land due to Government policies and market forces. Unfortunately, the survey carried out in early 1970s erroneously omitted to register our rights and possession over the land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village and wrongly recorded Government of Goa, instead of our community, as the occupant. However, we have continued to remain in uninterrupted possession and have nurtured and tended to the entire land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village till date, just as our forefathers have done from times immemorial.
6. FREE, PRIOR INFORMED CONSENT: STATUTORY, CONSTITUTIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL MANDATES
We have enjoyed this land without any interruption for hundreds of years, and therefore the land cannot be alienated from us without taking our consent. There are numerous legal, constitutional and international mandates which require the Government to take our prior consent, such as:
a. The procedures laid down under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 must be followed by the Government, since the people of Melauli village have rights over all of the lands that are proposed to be usurped from our possession, notwithstanding whether the rights are recorded in the survey records and records of rights maintained by the Government.
b. The Constitution of India recognizes our Rights to Life, Livelihood, Equality, Justice and Environment as Fundamental Rights. Our rights to the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village are directly related to our Fundamental Rights to Life, Livelihood, Equality, Justice and Environment and hence it is the Government’s Constitutional duty to consult us and obtain our consent before attempting to usurp our lands.
c. The Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 has the objective of greater participation of the people in the governance and decision-making for their villages, and which provides for informing the people, holding discussions and taking decisions through the Gram Sabha of the concerned Village Panchayat. Despite requests from the local community of our village through our Temple Committee, the Government has not only failed to inform us of the nature and implications of the proposed IIT project, or to consult us and obtain our consent, but has also kept us completely in the dark, to the extent that we have not even seen the plans showing which of our lands are proposed to be usurped.
d. After the 73rd amendment of the Constitution of India, it is now a Constitutional requirement to ensure people’s participation in taking such decisions.
e. India is a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which mandates that the Governments of the World uphold the rights of Indigenous People, such as us, to self-governance and self-determination; to our lands, territories and resources; to our economic, political and cultural rights; etc. In particular, our Government is bound to obtain the Free, Prior, Informed Consent of indigenous communities prior to considering any proposal that displaces the indigenous people, and the Government of Goa is therefore obliged to obtain our Free, Prior, Informed Consent before deciding on locating the IIT project on our lands.
7. PEOPLE’S RIGHTS MUST BE RECOGNIZED FIRST
The Government records do not recognize the rights of the indigenous communities of Melauli over the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village and the resources provided by these lands. It is therefore incumbent upon the Government to initially consult the people and their local bodies to determine, recognize and document the rights of the local people over the land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village, before taking any other steps with regards to the proposal to use these lands for the IIT Goa project.
8. WATER SECURITY AND WATER RESOURCES MUST BE STUDIED FIRST
The land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village includes plateau lands on top, steeply sloping forested/ cultivated lands along the slopes of the plateau and valleys below. The plateau and the slopes are the main aquifer for Melauli village and there are more than 8 major perennial springs and numerous ponds within sy no 67/1, Melauli village that sustain the lives of the local people, vegetation and Wildlife. Government of Goa must first carry out scientific studies of the water resources provided by the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village, the dependence of the local communities and the rich Wildlife of the forests and plateau within this land on these water resources, and the water security of Melauli village, Sattari taluka and State of Goa, before considering the proposal of locating IIT Goa on this land.
9. POST COVID-19, DO WE NEED MORE IITs IN THIS CLIMATE CRISIS?
The post Covid-19 World needs to be different, if man has to survive the daunting challenges looming ahead. The past economic policies have been blindly pushing man and the planet towards disaster, and even annihilation, at the hands of climate change, resources depletion, deadly health implications such as Covid-19, and other consequences. India is under the greatest threat due to our fragile monsoon systems, groundwater depletion, melting glaciers, collapsing food security, large population and vulnerable coasts. The State of Goa, which is on the frontline of the climate emergency due to its coastal location, has crossed its carrying capacity long back and is already reeling under severe environmental stress due to massive destruction due to mining, industries, real estate speculation and big hotels and casino based tourism.
All the scientists of the World and distinguished thinkers and persons, including the UN Secretary-General, are pleading with the Governments to change the policies for the post Covid-19 world towards sustainable and environment friendly economic policies. In this scenario, the decision of the Indian Government to build more IITs (we have already increased the number of IITs from 5 in the past to 23) is highly questionable. More engineers will require us to create more unsustainable economic activities and jobs, accelerating our own demise. The proposed IIT Goa project at Melauli village is exactly what we are required to stop, if mankind, especially the population of Goa, has to survive in the post Covid-19 era.
10. IIT FIASCO
The proposal to construct yet another IIT in our country needs to be revisited in view of the information now available. There were only 5 IITs in the country for many decades, which served the country well. Suddenly, in the past few years, the number of IITs has been increased to 23, due to the blind policy to build more IITs across the country. However, this multifold increase in the number of IITs has had a catastrophic impact on the student communities, the standard of education in these institutes and their reputation. It is well documented that most of the IITs are now highly understaffed and without the infrastructure necessary to impart the high standard of education they were meant for. The demand from the students has accordingly shrunk drastically, with many new IITs struggling to find students of the high caliber they are looking for. The need of the hour is to first provide the existing IITs with the staff and infrastructure they need, before constructing any new IIT campuses, which will require at least another ten years. Until such time, all new IIT campuses, such as the one at Goa, must be shelved.
11. EVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF PROPOSED IIT ON THE REGION
The proposed IIT project will have disastrous impacts on the economies, societies and environment of not just Melauli village, but the entire region, for the following reasons:
a. Firstly, the local communities of Melauli village are totally dependent on the economic and environmental resources provided by the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village. The lives and livelihoods of the 2,500 local people directly dependent on the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village are under grave threat due to the direct impact of losing their agricultural, grazing and forest lands as well as local water resources to the IIT project. The IIT project will directly displace these 2,500 people belonging to the indigenous communities.
b. Secondly, the water security of this region, which is highly sensitive and fragile from the inception, is already highly threatened due to diversion of Madei river by Karnataka, leaving the Ragada river as the main tributary of the Mandovi river on which lakhs of Goans depend. The IIT project will not only destroy the recharge area of the local water resources, on which it is proposed to be constructed, but will also be a big consumer of the scarce water resources of the Ragada River, thus denying tens of thousands of local farmers and fishers of the region the precious and limited water resources on which their lives and livelihoods depend.
c. The IIT project is proposed to be located at Melauli village only to facilitate the displacement of tens of thousands of oppressed persons from the villages of Guleli, Dhamshem and other neighbouring villages of Sattari taluka by speculative real estate. The indigenous local communities of Sattari taluka are the most oppressed in the State of Goa due to the ruthless ruling class of this taluka. Most of the people of the villages surrounding Melauli don’t have any documentation of their rights over the lands on which they live and cultivate. Most of the lands in this region are wrongly recorded in Government records as occupied by the ruling class families or by the Government of Goa, though the indigenous communities have lived on these lands, cultivated them and occupied them continuously and without any interruption for thousands of years. This historical injustice must be first resolved by ensuring that all the rights of the indigenous communities are recorded in the Government records, before any changes in land use are allowed or proposed. The IIT project will create a speculative demand for land from the thousands of rich and privileged people from across India who will be using or visiting these facilities, allowing the local feudal landlords to sell the lands wrongly recorded in their names to these unsuspecting investors, leading to mass displacement of the indigenous communities residing/cultivating on these lands and who are the real occupants and owners of these lands.
d. The food security of Goa is extremely poor, as demonstrated during the recent Covid-19 lockdown. Rich agricultural lands such as sy no 67/1, Melauli village are the only hope for the improvement of the food security of the State. The IIT project will have a massive negative impact on the already beleaguered food security of Goa, which does not augur well for the State and its residents in the face of the food crisis expected due to the impending climate emergency.
e. The lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village are home to exceptionally rich wildlife and is additionally the critical wildlife corridor connecting the three wildlife sanctuaries located around this land. The proposed IIT will not only decimate healthy populations of the Schedule-I animals like pangolin, bison, leopard, slender loris, etc that live here, but will also ensure that the populations of 5 species of deer and various other types of fauna residing here perish as well. The IIT project will also cause devastating man-wildlife conflict in all the neighbouring lands, which are presently under heavy cultivation. Further, the loss of this critical wildlife corridor will have a massive negative impact on the health of the wildlife populations of all the three wildlife Sanctuaries that are dependent on this Corridor for their survival.
f. No amount of money can buy the lives of people and their community. There is no price that you can put on a community. The community is not a commodity that can be bought and sold. This community is a living body with soul and history. To displace and uproot them from their home and community is the gravest crime against humanity. Where will these people go? Do we Indians want to murder our own people, like the colonial powers did over a century ago?
In view of the above self-explanatory facts and arguments, we demand that the proposal to locate the IIT Goa campus in sy no 67/1, Melauli village must be shelved immediately, under intimation to us. You are also welcome to ask us for any further information or clarification, if required.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
Panaji-Date: 5th June, 2020
From
Residents of Melauli and neighbouring villages of Sattari taluka, Goa,
c/o ,
Shubham Shivolkar
, Melauli, Sattari taluka, Goa – 403506
Tel: 8208666011
To
1. His Excellency, The Governor of Goa,
Raj Bhavan, Dona Paula, Panaji, Goa - 403004
Email - governor.goa@gov.in
2. The Hon’ble Union Minister for Human Resources Development,
Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi – 110001
Email – minister.hrd@gov.in
3. Shri Pramod Sawant, The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Goa,
Ministers’ Block, Secretariat, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - cm.goa@nic.in
4. Shri Vishwajit Rane, The Hon’ble MLA of Valpoi Constituency,
Office of the Minister for Health, Craftsmen Training & Women & Child Development,
206, Ministers’ Block, Secretariat, Alto- Porvorim, Bardez, Goa 403521
Email – mla.valpoi.gvs@gov.in, healthminstergoa@gmail.com
5. The Chief Secretary of Goa,
The Secretariat, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - cs-goa@nic.in
6. The Secretary (Revenue),
The Secretariat, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - -goa@nic.in
7. The Collector, North Goa District,
The North Goa Collectorate Building, Panaji, Goa- 403001
Email – coln.goa@nic.in
8. The Director, Directorate of Technical Education,
DTE Building, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email - dir-dte.goa@nic.in
9. The Dy Conservator of Forests, North Goa Division,
The Forest Department, Ponda, Goa - 403401
Email – dcfnorth-forest.goa@nic.in
10. The Chief Engineer, Water Resources Department,
Sinchai Bhavan, Alto-Porvorim, Bardez, Goa - 403521
Email – ce-wrd.goa@nic.in
11. The Sarpach/Secretary,
Village Panchayat of Guleli, Guleli, Sattari, Goa - 403506
Email – vpguleli@gmail.com
SUB: REQUEST TO DROP THE ILL-ADVISED PROPOSAL TO BUILD IIT GOA AT MELAULI VILLAGE IN SATTARI TALUKA
Dear Sir/Madam,
This letter is to inform you that we, the affected villagers of Melauli and neighbouring villages of Sattari taluka completely oppose the illegal, ill-advised and catastrophic proposal to construct the IIT Goa complex in sy no 67/1, Melauli village, Sattari taluka. We also strongly condemn the underhand, unconstitutional, coercive and secretive steps being taken by the Government to totally displace us by usurping our common lands, without even informing or consulting us, in this cursed attempt to forcibly construct IIT Goa on our lands. The following brief facts and arguments are placed before you, which overwhelmingly and irrefutably prove that this proposal is doomed from the beginning, and is anti-people and anti-development from all angles:
1. THREE WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES WITHIN 3 KM – UNIQUE IMPORTANCE OF THE ONLY FOREST PATCH IN MELAULIM VILLAGE AS A CRITICAL WILDLIFE CORRIDOR
The land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village has unique and exceptional importance for the Wildlife of Goa in view of its strategic location. Melauli village borders the Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary on its South-West side, has the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary less than 700 m from its Eastern boundary, while Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary lies 2 km to the South-East of Melauli. This village is therefore of the highest importance to the Wildlife of Goa among the villages outside the Wildlife Sanctuaries of Goa. The land bearing sy no 67/1 has the best continuous stretch of forests and cultivated lands in Melauli village, which is teeming with wildlife of all kinds, to the extent that deer, bison, etc can be seen in this forest all throughout the day and night. The land bearing sy no 67/1 of Melauli village is therefore a Critical Corridor that must be protected and conserved at any cost.
2. PROHIBITED ACTIVITY IN WG ESA
The village of Melauli is included in the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change Notification dated 27.2.2017 (commonly called Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Areas Notification, published on 28.2.2017 in the Official Gazette of India, Extraordinary, No 598, Part-II, Section 3, sub-section (ii)) as an Ecologically Sensitive Area of the Western Ghats, as recorded on page 129 of the Notification. Paragraph 3, (1), (d) of the Notification prohibits all new and expansion projects of building and construction with built up area of 20,000 square meters and above in the Ecologically Sensitive Areas of the Western Ghats. The IIT project is therefore prohibited in the village of Melauli.
3. UNIDENTIFIED AND UNPROTECTED FORESTS
Sy no 67/1, Melauli village has large stretches of forests of critical importance for both wildlife and our people. The forests on these lands are our community forests which sustain our lives by providing water recharge for our springs, timber and other forest produce, soil generation, soil fertility, environmental security, ecological balance and by reducing wildlife conflict. These community forests must be first identified and demarcated so that they are protected under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 as directed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the Godavarman Case and committed by Goa Government before the Courts. There are also large plantations of the indigenous communities within sy no 67/1, Melauli village, which are contiguous to the forests and provide continuity of habitat, food and shelter to the rich wildlife of the adjoining forest patches.
Unfortunately, the Thomas Committee and the other Committees appointed earlier to identify the unidentified forests in the State of Goa have not visited sy no 67/1 of Melauli village, Sattari taluka. Due to the haste with which the IIT project is being pushed, there is an imminent threat to these unidentified forests and other trees of sy no 67/1, Melauli village. It is therefore essential that the forests and other trees in sy no 67/1, Melauli village must be identified and demarcated immediately.
4. BIODIVERSITY OF MELAULI VILLAGE
The land bearing sy no 67/1 of Melauli village is the most important reservoir of biodiversity in this village. Most of Melauli is heavily cultivated by the indigenous communities and the forests in sy no 67/1 of Melauli are the only place in the village which provide essential biodiversity services for the entire village. The land bearing sy no 76/1 of Melauli village is extremely rich in biodiversity, with exceptionally rich populations of bison, leopards, pangolins, slender loris, 5 species of deer (sambhar, barking deer, spotted deer, mouse deer and four-horned antelope), civets, giant squirrel, flying squirrel, snakes including the King Cobra, all kinds of rare birds and other fauna of the Western Ghats, etc. The floral diversity of this land is also incomparable on account of the presence of both forests as well as exceptionally rich laterite plateaus within this land. It is therefore most essential that this land is conserved as it is, without changing the land use, in order to conserve the biodiversity of Goa and the Western Ghats.
5. LANDS BEARING SY NO 67/1, MELAULI ARE COMMONS, FULLY OCCUPIED & INHABITED BY VILLAGERS OF MELAULI
The lands surveyed under sy no 67/1, Melauli village are fully inhabited, possessed and used by the villagers residing in the Murmune, Shel, Maingine, Dhada and other wards of Melauli village and also by some of the residents of neighbouring villages. Over 2,500 villagers have direct rights over this land - some in terms of their cashew, mango, jackfruit and other plantations on the slopes; others by virtue of paddy, coconut, betel nut, vegetable, spices and other cultivation in the lower valleys (endowed with natural springs); and all the residents in terms of the forests and forest produce, grazing lands, unique medicinal plants found on the plateau, nallahs used for seasonal fishing, and, most importantly, (1) the critical, unalienable ground water recharge by the plateau giving rise to our fragile springs and water security, and (2) ecological services which are responsible for our environmental security.
These are the common lands of our village which are wrongly recorded in the survey records as occupied by the Government of Goa, since the entire land is inhabited and occupied by us and our ancestors since times immemorial. The entire land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village is called ‘Deula Moll’ by us, indicating that this land was traditionally occupied and cultivated as village commons under the auspices of the Temple located at the bottom of the slopes of sy no 67/1, Melauli village. From the earliest memories of our elders and their elders before them, most of the land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village was cultivated for growing cereals and lentils such as nachno, udit, kudit, pakot, etc until early 1970s, when people shifted to cultivating cashew and other fruit trees on this land due to Government policies and market forces. Unfortunately, the survey carried out in early 1970s erroneously omitted to register our rights and possession over the land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village and wrongly recorded Government of Goa, instead of our community, as the occupant. However, we have continued to remain in uninterrupted possession and have nurtured and tended to the entire land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village till date, just as our forefathers have done from times immemorial.
6. FREE, PRIOR INFORMED CONSENT: STATUTORY, CONSTITUTIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL MANDATES
We have enjoyed this land without any interruption for hundreds of years, and therefore the land cannot be alienated from us without taking our consent. There are numerous legal, constitutional and international mandates which require the Government to take our prior consent, such as:
a. The procedures laid down under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 must be followed by the Government, since the people of Melauli village have rights over all of the lands that are proposed to be usurped from our possession, notwithstanding whether the rights are recorded in the survey records and records of rights maintained by the Government.
b. The Constitution of India recognizes our Rights to Life, Livelihood, Equality, Justice and Environment as Fundamental Rights. Our rights to the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village are directly related to our Fundamental Rights to Life, Livelihood, Equality, Justice and Environment and hence it is the Government’s Constitutional duty to consult us and obtain our consent before attempting to usurp our lands.
c. The Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 has the objective of greater participation of the people in the governance and decision-making for their villages, and which provides for informing the people, holding discussions and taking decisions through the Gram Sabha of the concerned Village Panchayat. Despite requests from the local community of our village through our Temple Committee, the Government has not only failed to inform us of the nature and implications of the proposed IIT project, or to consult us and obtain our consent, but has also kept us completely in the dark, to the extent that we have not even seen the plans showing which of our lands are proposed to be usurped.
d. After the 73rd amendment of the Constitution of India, it is now a Constitutional requirement to ensure people’s participation in taking such decisions.
e. India is a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which mandates that the Governments of the World uphold the rights of Indigenous People, such as us, to self-governance and self-determination; to our lands, territories and resources; to our economic, political and cultural rights; etc. In particular, our Government is bound to obtain the Free, Prior, Informed Consent of indigenous communities prior to considering any proposal that displaces the indigenous people, and the Government of Goa is therefore obliged to obtain our Free, Prior, Informed Consent before deciding on locating the IIT project on our lands.
7. PEOPLE’S RIGHTS MUST BE RECOGNIZED FIRST
The Government records do not recognize the rights of the indigenous communities of Melauli over the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village and the resources provided by these lands. It is therefore incumbent upon the Government to initially consult the people and their local bodies to determine, recognize and document the rights of the local people over the land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village, before taking any other steps with regards to the proposal to use these lands for the IIT Goa project.
8. WATER SECURITY AND WATER RESOURCES MUST BE STUDIED FIRST
The land bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village includes plateau lands on top, steeply sloping forested/ cultivated lands along the slopes of the plateau and valleys below. The plateau and the slopes are the main aquifer for Melauli village and there are more than 8 major perennial springs and numerous ponds within sy no 67/1, Melauli village that sustain the lives of the local people, vegetation and Wildlife. Government of Goa must first carry out scientific studies of the water resources provided by the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village, the dependence of the local communities and the rich Wildlife of the forests and plateau within this land on these water resources, and the water security of Melauli village, Sattari taluka and State of Goa, before considering the proposal of locating IIT Goa on this land.
9. POST COVID-19, DO WE NEED MORE IITs IN THIS CLIMATE CRISIS?
The post Covid-19 World needs to be different, if man has to survive the daunting challenges looming ahead. The past economic policies have been blindly pushing man and the planet towards disaster, and even annihilation, at the hands of climate change, resources depletion, deadly health implications such as Covid-19, and other consequences. India is under the greatest threat due to our fragile monsoon systems, groundwater depletion, melting glaciers, collapsing food security, large population and vulnerable coasts. The State of Goa, which is on the frontline of the climate emergency due to its coastal location, has crossed its carrying capacity long back and is already reeling under severe environmental stress due to massive destruction due to mining, industries, real estate speculation and big hotels and casino based tourism.
All the scientists of the World and distinguished thinkers and persons, including the UN Secretary-General, are pleading with the Governments to change the policies for the post Covid-19 world towards sustainable and environment friendly economic policies. In this scenario, the decision of the Indian Government to build more IITs (we have already increased the number of IITs from 5 in the past to 23) is highly questionable. More engineers will require us to create more unsustainable economic activities and jobs, accelerating our own demise. The proposed IIT Goa project at Melauli village is exactly what we are required to stop, if mankind, especially the population of Goa, has to survive in the post Covid-19 era.
10. IIT FIASCO
The proposal to construct yet another IIT in our country needs to be revisited in view of the information now available. There were only 5 IITs in the country for many decades, which served the country well. Suddenly, in the past few years, the number of IITs has been increased to 23, due to the blind policy to build more IITs across the country. However, this multifold increase in the number of IITs has had a catastrophic impact on the student communities, the standard of education in these institutes and their reputation. It is well documented that most of the IITs are now highly understaffed and without the infrastructure necessary to impart the high standard of education they were meant for. The demand from the students has accordingly shrunk drastically, with many new IITs struggling to find students of the high caliber they are looking for. The need of the hour is to first provide the existing IITs with the staff and infrastructure they need, before constructing any new IIT campuses, which will require at least another ten years. Until such time, all new IIT campuses, such as the one at Goa, must be shelved.
11. EVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF PROPOSED IIT ON THE REGION
The proposed IIT project will have disastrous impacts on the economies, societies and environment of not just Melauli village, but the entire region, for the following reasons:
a. Firstly, the local communities of Melauli village are totally dependent on the economic and environmental resources provided by the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village. The lives and livelihoods of the 2,500 local people directly dependent on the lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village are under grave threat due to the direct impact of losing their agricultural, grazing and forest lands as well as local water resources to the IIT project. The IIT project will directly displace these 2,500 people belonging to the indigenous communities.
b. Secondly, the water security of this region, which is highly sensitive and fragile from the inception, is already highly threatened due to diversion of Madei river by Karnataka, leaving the Ragada river as the main tributary of the Mandovi river on which lakhs of Goans depend. The IIT project will not only destroy the recharge area of the local water resources, on which it is proposed to be constructed, but will also be a big consumer of the scarce water resources of the Ragada River, thus denying tens of thousands of local farmers and fishers of the region the precious and limited water resources on which their lives and livelihoods depend.
c. The IIT project is proposed to be located at Melauli village only to facilitate the displacement of tens of thousands of oppressed persons from the villages of Guleli, Dhamshem and other neighbouring villages of Sattari taluka by speculative real estate. The indigenous local communities of Sattari taluka are the most oppressed in the State of Goa due to the ruthless ruling class of this taluka. Most of the people of the villages surrounding Melauli don’t have any documentation of their rights over the lands on which they live and cultivate. Most of the lands in this region are wrongly recorded in Government records as occupied by the ruling class families or by the Government of Goa, though the indigenous communities have lived on these lands, cultivated them and occupied them continuously and without any interruption for thousands of years. This historical injustice must be first resolved by ensuring that all the rights of the indigenous communities are recorded in the Government records, before any changes in land use are allowed or proposed. The IIT project will create a speculative demand for land from the thousands of rich and privileged people from across India who will be using or visiting these facilities, allowing the local feudal landlords to sell the lands wrongly recorded in their names to these unsuspecting investors, leading to mass displacement of the indigenous communities residing/cultivating on these lands and who are the real occupants and owners of these lands.
d. The food security of Goa is extremely poor, as demonstrated during the recent Covid-19 lockdown. Rich agricultural lands such as sy no 67/1, Melauli village are the only hope for the improvement of the food security of the State. The IIT project will have a massive negative impact on the already beleaguered food security of Goa, which does not augur well for the State and its residents in the face of the food crisis expected due to the impending climate emergency.
e. The lands bearing sy no 67/1, Melauli village are home to exceptionally rich wildlife and is additionally the critical wildlife corridor connecting the three wildlife sanctuaries located around this land. The proposed IIT will not only decimate healthy populations of the Schedule-I animals like pangolin, bison, leopard, slender loris, etc that live here, but will also ensure that the populations of 5 species of deer and various other types of fauna residing here perish as well. The IIT project will also cause devastating man-wildlife conflict in all the neighbouring lands, which are presently under heavy cultivation. Further, the loss of this critical wildlife corridor will have a massive negative impact on the health of the wildlife populations of all the three wildlife Sanctuaries that are dependent on this Corridor for their survival.
f. No amount of money can buy the lives of people and their community. There is no price that you can put on a community. The community is not a commodity that can be bought and sold. This community is a living body with soul and history. To displace and uproot them from their home and community is the gravest crime against humanity. Where will these people go? Do we Indians want to murder our own people, like the colonial powers did over a century ago?
In view of the above self-explanatory facts and arguments, we demand that the proposal to locate the IIT Goa campus in sy no 67/1, Melauli village must be shelved immediately, under intimation to us. You are also welcome to ask us for any further information or clarification, if required.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
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