MOLLEM: Babu Shelke has just returned home to Palaskata in Mollem after a 4km trek with his cattle. This is his routine for years. But it may not last long if the state government goes ahead with the three Centre-funded infra projects, including the four-laning of road, that cuts across the protected area. Shelke and his 10-odd family members, belonging to Goa’s cowherd community or dhangars, survive on agriculture and dairy farming.
“The government says it is constructing roads for development. If we do not have anything to eat, then what is the point of having a road. Where should we go if these new projects shut access for us to the land we cultivate and the streams we use for agriculture,” said Shelke.
The permission by the environment ministry shows the loss of 14.16 ha of forest land at Mollem, while another 12.27 ha at Sangod will be required for the project. Altogether, 31.53 ha of forest land will be taken up by the highway expansion project.
A Sangod-resident and an aerospace engineer by profession, Krishna Zore, points to the approval of the Union environment ministry for the four-laning project on its website Parivesh, even as the state government’s stand has been that this road expansion project has not yet been finalised.
“The permission shows the Goa stretch of the road for four-laning is 97km in length and the rest has been shown as falling in Karnataka. If the Goa stretch was shown as 100km, then they would have to hold a public hearing, as mandated by law. Also, the permission shows Sangod as a different village, when it is part of the Mollem panchayat. This shows the forest loss in Mollem to be much lower than the actual figure,” says Zore.
Senior citizen Saraschandra Khandeparkar, who will lose his house and liquor store attached to it, questions the state government’s decision to widen the road to 40m.
“When the Karnataka government, citing that wildlife will be affected, has restricted widening of the highway to 12m, why has our government agreed to widen the same highway to 40m?” asks Khandeparkar.
Reforestation efforts by the forest department has already begun in Mollem, as a replacement for the lost cover due to the power transmission line and substation work. But locals point to the rocky terrain where the saplings have been planted and raise doubts about the government’s seriousness in compensatory reforestation.
“Rocky terrain has been drilled to plant the saplings. I doubt they can survive here. There is a reason trees have not grown here naturally. Also, the forest being lost is part of the Western Ghats, which is older than the Himalayas. It is like killing your blood relative and replacing it with a stranger. Same has been done by the forest department by cutting endemic trees to plant jackfruit trees,” says botanist Swasha Khandeparkar.
Meanwhile, Shelke and his Dhangar community have another worry. Though they have headstones here to prove their ancestors have been living in the forest since 1816, they do not have land ownership documents to the forest land.
“We do not have land rights to the plot as the government declared it a protected area. Now, the same government is giving several hectares for a project in the protected area. And our MLA told us at a recent public meeting that it will generate only 12 jobs for a village of 20,000 population. Why should we not object to such a project?” says Kanta Shelke.
“The chief minister and the ministers will set up a project here today and they will be gone tomorrow. But we will be left to live with it. Yet they did not ask us even once if we want the project,” says Kanta.