Panaji: Voicing concern over the pervading trend of protests across the state, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Tuesday said the mentality to oppose everything, including the project like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), in a literate state like Goa is not right.
Speaking to mediapersons at Mantralaya, Porvorim, he said some people are opposing everything just for the sake of opposition.
He said that in a state with “100 per cent literacy”, people should welcome a project of national importance.
“The project like IIT would bring about long-term educational and economic benefits to the state and its people. Let people tell me why they are opposed to the setting up of a permanent campus of IIT Goa. Someone is instigating them. This is a project in national interest, and Goa is going to benefit from it,” Pramod Sawant said.
Reacting to the mounting opposition from the people of Codar in Shiroda assembly constituency against the project in their village, the Chief Minister remarked that it has become a habit for some people to oppose everything.
Taking a cue from the Codar villagers who are up in arms against the IIT project, people of Bethora voiced strong opposition at a public meeting held in a temple in their village.
The locals claimed that they were not taken into confidence over the government’s plans to set up the campus in their area.
The government has proposed around 14.5 lakh square metres of comunidade land at Codar, coming under Bethora-Nirankal-Codar panchayat, for the project.
They claimed that while a small portion of the identified site is rocky, much of it is cultivable land used by locals. They warned that the project would result in destruction of trees, farmlands and biodiversity, besides posing a threat to wildlife.
The villagers also maintained that if the project was set up on the proposed land it would affect tribal people of the village, whose livelihood depends on the farmland.
A public notice published on August 19 by the administration of Comunidade Central Zone, Panaji, proposed the land in Codar village for the project. It described the land as a barren, rocky plot, and sought perpetual lease (aforamento) to establish the permanent campus for IIT.
It is pertinent to note that the government has failed to finalise a suitable tract of land for setting up the IIT campus as the project has been opposed wherever it was proposed.
