Due to lowering of travel costs by discount airlines, Delhi developers are now selling Goan landscapes to Delhi residents as second homes. These “group housing” projects are huge, so huge they all require environment clearances. They are being located in ecologically sensitive areas like hill slopes most of which are also forested. These are “no-development” zones in the Regional Plan. However, the advantage of being a “Delhi developer” is that permissions can be procured fairly easily. Prime Minister told a Conference of Environment Ministers in August 2009 that environment clearances had become a source of corruption. He should know.

Among the major projects which are violating existing norms of steep slopes and forested stretches are the River Valley Project of DLF (Delhi) which began with 580 units but has now expanded to 700 units plus club house and 35 guest rooms. In the adjoining village of Sancoale is M Tech Developers, also Delhi based, putting up another 500 unit luxury housing scheme on similar terrain.

On the beaches, more Delhi owned proposals are coming up. These include a five star by Competent Automobiles, New Delhi, at Cansaulim, Mahaseer Resort at Mandrem, Pednem. In the former, destruction of sand dunes is involved. In the latter, the proposal is in front of a turtle nesting site.

None of the mega housing projects are designed to cater to local housing needs. They can’t due to the high costs involved. DLF is selling each unit for Rs.54 lakh (over the table). If each unit is worth Rs.1 crore (what with unofficial payments also demanded), this becomes a Rs.700 crore project, being sold on the natural attractions of Goa conserved and protected lovingly by Goans for centuries. The ironic thing is the natural assets must be permanently destroyed to make way for such speculative housing. Goa cannot stand this ever expanding, ever deepening pillage.

All this is happening under a Congress-led regime both at the State and Centre.

The work of the Goa Foundation does not get reflected in the media for the simple reason that staff have very little time to prepare press statements. However, every day, every week, the Foundation grimly carries on its critical work relating to the protection of Goa, the conservation of its environment, the nurturing of the unique life-style of its people.

The blog format will enable us now to post regular matters as soon as they need to go into the public domain. This will include media statements, High and Supreme Court orders and judgements in Goa Foundation public interest petitions, reports on our involvement with the garbage problem Goa faces and information secured under the Right to Information Act.

We do not claim to be a one-stop window on the environmental issues Goa faces. There are several other groups also doing yeoman’s work in this regard. But you will be able to access information on Goa’s environment that you can never get elsewhere. Enjoy, weep, laugh, but in all situations, if you are able and capable, drop by to help. If things carry on as they are at the moment, Goa as we know it will become extinct in the next ten years.

Claude Alvares
Director