NT Reporter | Mapusa
Aldona Congress MLA Carlos Ferreira on Thursday alleged the recent draft notification on surveying all land in Goa is a ploy by the state government to permit land grabbing of Goans’ properties and houses.
He said he has no objection to land surveys, but
alleged these rules are being introduced “through
the backdoor” and are meant to usurp land, houses and fields.
The Goa government
notified the rules on October 9 in the official gazette as The Goa Geospatial Knowledge Based Land Survey of Urban Habitation Rules, 2025.
“The rules empower the government to direct the land survey department to conduct surveys and upload data as digital records,” he said.
“Rule 3 authorises the director of the land survey department to issue notices informing people that surveys will be conducted. House owners, mortgagees, residents abroad and other persons with interests in the land would be required to provide information to survey officers to ensure that their lands are measured and rights recorded correctly,” said the Aldona legislator.
He said that the collected data would be uploaded to the GIS portal of the Madhya Pradesh State Electronic Development Corporation.
“What happened to Goa Electronic Limited? Is our Goa government incompetent? Don’t we have our own Goan government website and ready database? Why give it to Madhya Pradesh and that too a corporation? They will have all our data, they can manipulate it, and they can share and even sell it. Nowadays we are getting spam calls as our data has been sold, it’s the same way,” he said.
He said inquiry officers would send lists of unoccupied vacant plots and unclaimed land parcels to the collector under the Goa Escheats Forfeiture and Bona Vacantia Act, 2024. He had earlier termed it a “land grabbing law” in the Assembly.
Ferreira said clause I of the public notice excludes agricultural land.
“If you’re surveying all lands then why exclude agricultural land, including those tenanted? This is because the government has set its sights on free-hold land, houses and landed property,” he said.
He urged Goans to be alert and prepare ownership documents, warning that without proof “one day an order will come to vacate the house and you’ll be on the roads”.
