How to dodge your vote bank -ToI

How to dodge your vote bank TNN | Nov 9, 2012, 12.28AM IST MARGAO: The South Goa district administration is in the process of identifying illegal structures that have encroached on comunidade land at Moti Dongor, Margao. It's part of the impending demolition of all illegal hutments there. But, interestingly, even as late as August 2011, the state government, albeit led by another party at the time, was "seriously considering" the revival of an old proposal-the acquisition of 23,000 sq m of land at Moti Dongor to rehabilitate 325 structures. Of course, the bleeding heart was more inclined towards the March 2012 assembly polls; a conservative estimate of 2,000 voters, after all, is no small figure. On October 4, 1985, then collector of Goa, Shakti Sinha, notified 7,000 sq m of land at Moti Dongor as a 'slum area'. It has now come to light, via RTI documents, that another 16,000 sq m of land was notified in November 2001. Then district collector, Jose Phillip, issued the notification on November 13, 2001, declaring the "slum area" under Section 3 of the Slum Areas (Improvements and Clearance) Act, 1956, reveal documents obtained by RTI activist and Aquem comunidade member Savio Correia. "...The area of 7,000 sq m thereof has already been notified as "slum area" by the then collector of Goa, Panaji, under notification No. 5(3)/1/82/RHF/681 dated 4-10-1985; and I am satisfied that the hutments/buildings in the remaining part of area mentioned in the schedule are faulty in arrangement and design and in unhygienic condition and as such detrimental to the safety, health and morals of the inhabitants," Phillip stated in his notification. And, thus, the "slum area" at Moti Dongor came to total 23,000 sq m. Records with TOI show that in 2006, Margao MLA and former chief minister, Digambar Kamat, who was then the state's power minister, initiated steps to have the government acquire this land to rehabilitate 325 structures near the microwave tower. The rehabilitation scheme was to be implemented by the Goa Rehabilitation Board (GRB); and the slum rehabilitation project received "in-principle" approval from the then government. The letter addressed to the South Goa collector by the under secretary (revenue), dated July 26, 2006, states, "The collectorate of South Goa to acquire land by invoking urgency as the acquiring department admeasuring 23,000 sq m on the Monte hill. The collector should move necessary proposal to seek funds from the government for making the payment for the acquisition. The land once acquired be handed over to the GRB in order to take up the slum rehabilitation project and allotment of the tenements to the rehabilitating families." In September 2006, the land acquisition officer estimated the cost of the land acquisition at Rs 1.15 cr while forwarding the proposal to the government for administrative approval and expenditure sanction. Nothing else happened. For five years the proposal was seemingly and conveniently forgotten by the government for reasons unknown. Meanwhile, Kamat became chief minister in June 2007, and in August 2011, a few months ahead of his tenure coming to an end, he sought to revive the proposal. Records with TOI show that Kamat convened a meeting of the GRB and PWD on August 3, 2011, seeking a status report on the rehabilitation proposal that was initiated in 2006. At the meeting he directed the GRB to work out the feasibility of constructing housing units for the rehabilitation of the identified slum dwellers. When GRB sought the status report of the land acquisition proceedings from the South Goa collectorate, the former was informed that the land acquisition process "never took off". "... though there were moves to acquire the land for the purpose of rehabilitation, the process of acquisition never took off because of failure on the part of the government to grant administrative approval as well as to deposit monies of structure and value of the land," then deputy collector, Johnson Fernandes, replied to GRB through a letter dated August 22, 2011. It continues, "Secondly, moving or reviving the proposal afresh might face a road block because the functions of the collector would be limited to acquisition and not to formulate proposals." He suggested that "it would be in the fitness of things that the GRB moots the proposal for acquisition of the land to meet its goal". GRB never mooted the proposal. Kamat, in a recent conversation with TOI, had admitted that the rehabilitation scheme for the slum dwellers had failed to take off. "... The state rehabilitation board had also tried to rehabilitate the slum dwellers in Moti Dongor itself, but, for some reason it never happened. At that time there were some 200-300 houses which didn't have any sanitation facilities, water or electricity supply, and hence needed to be rehabilitated," Kamat had said. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/How-to-dodge-your-vote-bank/articleshow/17148734.cms