Saturday, December 6, 2008

Goa Forest department cannot distinguish between Forest and mine!

A delegation of villagers from Colomb village in Sanguem [ Quepem Police station jurisdiction] submitted a petition on December 02 2008 to the office of the Chief Conservator of Forests. The CCF [Shashi Kumar IFS], the CF [C.A. Reddy, IFS] and the powerful DCFs were "out of station", so it fell to the lot of Mr. Santosh Kumar,IFS, the DCF [Planning & Statistics] at the old Passport Office to receive the delegation, give it a patient hearing and direct them to submit the petition to the "Inward Clerk". The CCF is likely to return to office next week.

The delegation consisting of Rama Lavu Velip, Mathew "Motes" Antao, Dument Peter D'Souza [all veterans of arrests by Quepem Police beginning 25 March, 2007 under Dy. Collector Johnson Fernandes and thereafter under Dy. Collector Venancio Furtado and recently under Mamlatdar Matu] and others were part of the delegation of farmers affected by the illegal mining in the Titulo de Concessao of Hiralal Khodidas, allegedly without any Forest or Environmental clearance, with a case [filed by Rama, Dr. Avadhoot Prabhudesai and Goa Foundation against Fomento Group company ILPL and Goa Department of Forests and GSPCB] pending in the court of law. The villagers allege that the DCF-South is colour blind and cannot see the difference between the forest and the mine but that is compensated by a sharper sense of taste for chicken xacuti and currency.

A similar petition was to be handed to the Chairman of GSPCB and the Chief Secretary of Goa.

Mog asundi

Miguel

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