NT Reporter
Ponda
Goa Forward Party (GFP) president Vijai Sardesai, at a meeting in Mollem on Saturday warned that
if pending payments to
sugarcane farmers were
not cleared before the Assembly session, the party would bring sugarcane to the Assembly to highlight the issue.
Sardesai visited villages in the Sanvordem constituency as part of the party’s ‘Jai Gaon, Thay Haon…’ outreach campaign, meeting residents, hearing
their grievances and discussing a village-centric action plan ahead of the forthcoming Assembly session on August 31.
Sardesai said Goa Forward believes in constituency- and village-level manifestos based on people’s actual needs. At the Mollem checkpost, Sardesai raised concerns over “non-functional or inadequate” camera systems, “weak” traffic enforcement and pending staff salaries, warning that such gaps could affect border monitoring and facilitate smuggling and illegal trade.
Former minister Deepak Pauskar also voiced support for regional governance, saying Goa did not need a government dependent on the Delhi high command. He said Goa Forward represented a local political alternative that listened to Goans. Sardesai also said commissioning of a Primary Health Centre was delayed, despite most of the work being completed by 2022, and raised concerns over the prolonged closure of mining and its impact on tourism and local livelihoods.
“Goem, Goemkar and Goemkarponn” remained the central theme of the outreach, with Sardesai asserting that Goa’s future should be decided in Goa, not Delhi.
