Canacona (Goa), Jan 13 (PTI) Goa Chief MinisterManohar Parrikar today visited the state's Canacona assemblyconstituency bordering Karnataka and interacted with peoplefrom the tribal and fishing communities here.
He had lunch at the house of a tribal family at theGaodongri village on the periphery of Cotigao WildlifeSanctuary. Later he met villagers there who demanded thattheir villages be denotified from the protected areas of theForest Act as they were facing difficulties "even to dig awell for drinking water."He assured them that their rights under the Forest Actwould be protected but these lands cannot be converted intoownership of the locals due to lacunae in the Central law.
"Under Forest Rights Act, the decision to hand overthe land to the dwellers has to be taken by the gram sabha ofvillage panchayat which should be attended by at least 50 percent of the population of the village. You donÂ’t get such ahuge number of people for the gram sabha and this has heldback the entire process," he said.
The chief minister said that attempts should be madeto involve the entire village in the gram sabha.
Parrikar, during his visit to the Talpona jetty,interacted with the fishing community which demanded that thedredging of the jetty should be taken up on priority basis asthe basin has silted.
He assured them that once the report of theCSIR-National Institute of Oceanography on the environmentalimpact of the dredging comes in, the work would begin. PTI RPSBNM.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.