The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) expresses its full solidarity with the people and communities of Goa, standing up against coal handling and transportation and related mega infrastructure through the small state. NAPM notes that recent Government of India announcements have confirmed the concerns of people that the three linear projects of electrical transmission, road widening, and double tracking of railways, and the Sagarmala programme, are designed to facilitate corridors, which further the transportation of coal from Mormugao Port to Hospet in Karnataka, which is part of the larger initiative of steel corridors in Karnataka and development corridors that are being set up all over the country.
There is evidence that the Government is now going ahead full steam to pander to the advancement of these corridors, which have no demonstrated benefit to people at large, whether in Goa or in Karnataka. For a small state like Goa to have to lose its resources and become a ‘corridor’ towards the Corridor, spells complete disaster. Its air, waters, its rivers, its agriculture, its fishing and fish-drying spaces, its forests, its peoples’ health and livelihoods, are all under threat from coal dust and infrastructure being set up to make coal transportation through the port, roads, railways and waterways of Goa possible.
The NAPM has also condemned the questionable legal architecture systematically introduced to facilitate these plans that enable corporate expansionism, even as existing laws and regulations around environmental protection, social impacts, land acquisition and rehabilitation are being violated.
In a statement issued yesterday, the NAPM has also joined the active people’s movements of Goa and Karnataka in resisting the reduction of the region to a coal transportation and corridors hub, and in their struggles to safeguard the ecology, livelihoods and people’s well-being, for current and future generations.
Goans have been demanding the de-notification of the rivers of Goa, which have been declared as National Waterways under the National Waterways Act, 2016. Similarly protesters have been demanding stoppage of the railway double-tracking project and return of lands acquired through draconian legislation.
NAPM further calls for an immediate halt to port expansion, by respecting the will of the people as even articulated in the public hearings in Mormugao taluka.
The people of Goa held a Chalo Lohia Maidan mass protest on Sunday November 9 in Goa.
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NAPM condemns Delhi authorities for deserting over 700 Dhobi Ghat residents
NAPM condemns Delhi authorities for deserting over 700 Dhobi Ghat residents