New Delhi: Residents of Shel-Melauli village in Sattari taluka of Goa, who have been protesting the state government’s decision to set up an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in their area, have unanimously turned down Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s offer to rehabilitate them elsewhere.
The local residents, who are mostly cashew farmers, have been protesting against the decision of the BJP government since this July. Because land titles are not issued by the state administration for long periods, locals fear that several of them would lose their land in the government’s rehabilitation process. They feat that they could also be moved to areas not suitable for cashew cultivation, their sole means of livelihood.
In a meeting with village representatives in late September, the chief minister, in the presence of Vishwajit Rane, the health minister and the local MLA, had reportedly said that the state government would shift villagers to another area if they could show land documents. The government was silent on the villagers’ demand for regularisation of their land titles.
A day after the first meeting state government employees arrived at the village to demarcate land for the IIT, leading villagers to intensify protests.
However, on October 29, Sawant who visited the village and the campus site at the insistence of the villagers to hear their grievances, offered to “rehabilitate the people who would be affected by the project and said his government would also regularise the land titles which have been pending for long”. As per a news report in The Herald, Sawant met hundreds of villagers.
Visited the Shel-Melauli village today & interacted with the villagers to listen to their grievances regarding the IIT Goa Campus. I have appealed to the villagers to form a committee to discuss all issues with the Govt and resolve them. pic.twitter.com/qs5QI5hRRQ
— Dr. Pramod Sawant (@DrPramodPSawant) October 29, 2020
At the October 29 meeting, in an attempt to convince the villagers, Sawant reportedly said that the IIT would bring development to the village which would mean “development of the villagers”. He said that “around 500 to 1,000 people will get jobs and next two generations will benefit”. He also offered to take some villagers to other IIT campuses to show the level of “development” around those campuses.
However, the locals stuck to their demand for land titles and insisted that the village be kept out of the IIT campus plan.
Like in the September meeting, the chief minister, in the October 29 meeting too, suggested that the villagers form a committee of villagers to discuss the issues as it “cannot be resolved by interacting with a huge crowd”.
After the September meeting, the chief minister had said that around 45,000 square metre of the land had been sliced out of the campus project as it “includes a temple and other areas used by locals for religious practices and rituals”.
On October 4, the villagers, mainly women, met at the local Vaipoi market and marched to the nearest police station demanding that it take back the summons issued to some villagers for opposing the IIT project. Two people were also arrested by then for taking active part in the protest. The protesters insisted that they all be arrested.
In July, there was police action on the protesters too. While some village representatives were speaking to reporters alleging that they were kept in dark about the matter by the state government, the police arrived at the scene and detained three of the speakers.