Thousands of Goans Protesting on Railway Tracks
Thousands of Goans came on the streets of Chandor, a south Goan town on Sunday night to protest against three infrastructure projects planned in Goa - a railway line, a highway and a power transmissio
Thousands of Goans came on the streets of Chandor, a south Goan town on Sunday 1st November night to protest various infrastructure projects planned in Goa.
The three projects that people are protesting for are:
1) Double-tracking of an old rail line from Karnataka’s Hospet to Vasco in Goa. Double-tracking will help transport of coal.
2) Laying down a transmission line
3) Four-lane of the existing NH 4A highway.
Environmentalists have raised concerns over three projects because these projects will destroy 170 hectares of forest land and 37,000 trees will be axed. On 1st November night, the protesters gathered at the railway track and sat there until dawn. These projects have been approved by the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) headed by Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar. According to an Indian Express report, NBWL claimed that these projects were cleared by the Goa State WildLife Board (GSWLB). The Goa State Wildlife Board members had met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on 2nd December 2019 to talk about the proposal for the projects.
However, some members of the Goa State Wildlife Board disagreed that they approved the projects. Environmentalist Rajendra Kerkar, one of the members of GSWLB said, “We were told this is a meeting to introduce everyone and discuss general matters. There was no talk of this being an environment assessment discussion or a project clearance meeting.” In response to the allegation of the members, Santosh Kumar, Chief Wildlife Warden, told Indian Express: “There is no provision in the law that a development project has to be done by plebiscite. It has to be done by the competent authority.”
