Mandur: Villagers of Azossim held a two-hour-long rally on Sunday, marching 7km along the main road and adjacent areas of Dongorim and Mandur to register their strong protest against the government’s Greater Panaji planning and development authority (GPPDA) plan.
Holding placards and shouting slogans non-stop along the route, the villagers - from six-year-olds to sixty-year-olds – voiced their dissent over the plan to include their village in the Kadamba planning area. Large chunks of green areas of the linear village along a hill range will be brought under GPPDA along with other villages.
The peaceful rally started with a brief prayer at the village’s northern end at Bacarar at 5.20pm and wended its way along the Pilar-Old Goa road to Tinto in Mandur and then turned into Dongorim island, now connected by a culvert. After completing the 3-km ring road around the hill, the protesters walked back to the Tinto and Our Lady of Amparo church.
Local panchayat member, Cypriano Alfonso, former sarpanchas and panchayat members Francis Po and Paulina Po, and Mandur panchayat member Lancy Dias along with Fr Brito Fernandes, parish priest of St Mathew church, Azossim, also participated in the rally. A few villagers from Mandur also joined the rally.
The rally went through the market area, narrow lanes of densely-populated areas, past sluice gates and fields and under the railway bridge, stiffly denouncing the plan.
In conclusion, Fr Fernandes urged the villagers to remain united in their fight to protect the hills and forest areas for posterity.
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