Goa BJP MLA wants 56 villages dropped from Centre’s list of eco-sensitive zones

The Indian Express | 6 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 11:40 am

BJP MLA Deviya Rane on Thursday moved a motion in the Goa Legislative Assembly calling its attention to the issue of 56 villages in North Goa’s Sattari taluka being declared “eco sensitive zones” which, she said, was “not acceptable” as villages cannot be declared so without a plan of action. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) should drop these 56 villages from a list of 99 from its draft notification on Ecologically Sensitive Areas in the Western Ghats, Rane added.“This is a new (draft) notification. Goa is such a small state, 66 per cent land is under forest cover so what is the need for this? We also have CRZ (coastal regulation zone) restrictions, we have other establishments like the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT), airport, defence establishments, where is the land left for people? If you make this an eco sensitive zone, where will people go? I request the chief minister to take a delegation to Delhi to take this up,” Rane said in the Assembly on Thursday. She said not all villages named in the draft notification can be declared ecologically sensitive and many are already under the state government’s protection.First-time MLA Rane represents Poriem Assembly constituency in the lush Sattari taluka of Goa. She said that villages in Sattari were ideal for ecotourism as the state government had planned but if they are declared ecologically sensitive, there will be no development in those areas. “Mining has shut down and if tourism is also hit, what will happen to the economy?” Rane later said.“I have requested the chief minister, the environment minister and the forest minister to please put forward (to the MoEF&CC) that this is not going to work for Goa,” she said, adding that they had until September 4 to put forward their objections.Rane said that according to the notification first issued by the MoEF&CC in 2014, 99 villages in Goa were declared ecological sensitive areas of Western Ghats identified by the K Kasturirangan committee. Then chief minister Manohar Parrikar had refused to accept the report. There were many follow ups through correspondences by the Goa government since but the MoEF&CC issued another draft notification on July 6, including 99 villages, despite several representations made by the state government.

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Goa govt says no list of temples destroyed during Portuguese rule

The Indian Express | 12 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 05:40 am

The Indian Express

12 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 05:40 am

GOA FORWARD Party MLA Vijai Sardesai on Thursday accused the state government of trying to “rewrite history” in its assurance of rebuilding temples destroyed during Portuguese rule in Goa when the government had not notified any such monuments.Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, however, said the Archives and Archeology department would notify the list.“Invest in history for the love of the past and don’t try to rewrite history to meet your agenda. We have a rich past, whether we like it or not we have to live it and we don’t have to search for something that may or may not exist,” said Sardesai.He said that such exercises should not be undertaken in a way that cause “communal tension”.Sardesai and Congress MLA Altone D’costa had asked for a “list of all religious and heritage sites destroyed by the Portuguese and whether these religious sites or deities were relocated and/or rebuilt, if not, the total budgetary provision made to rebuild temples”.In his written reply, Archives and Archeology Minister Subhash Phaldessai stated, “List of religious/Heritage sites destroyed by the Portuguese is not available with Archeology Department. However, several historians have published relevant research on this topic which is available in public domain. Budgetary allocation for restoration of temple is 20 crore for financial year 2022-23.”Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had announced earlier that a budgetary provision of Rs 20 crore had been made for rebuilding temples destroyed during the Portuguese rule.Phaldessai said, “There is no list [of destroyed temples] but there are several books and documents with the archives department.” Naming several works of historians, he said the books were available in public domain. “These books were not written today or after the Chief Minister made the announcement. They are in the archives, there is information. There is no manipulation of any kind.”

Tourism land at Colva turns into beach waste storage

Times of India | 13 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 04:52 am

Times of India

13 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 04:52 am

Colva: Beach goers at Colva are being greeted to tonnes of garbage filled plastic bags stored on land owned by the tourism department. The government-appointed beach cleaning agency has been instructed by the tourism department to utlise this space for storing the waste that will be subsequently transported to the treatment plant, an official stated. “Dry waste such as nets, plastic as well as cloth waste entangled in nets are collected and stored in plastic bags at the site for transportation,” stated an official of the Karnataka Commercial and Industrial Corporation (KCIC), the agency tasked with beach cleaning operations. Besides this, seaweed and discarded sandbags are also being dumped at the site. The land adjoins the nearby children’s park where massive erosion has destroyed two gazebos and some decorative electrical lamps. The beach cleaning official said that there is a restriction on accepting discarded nets at the treatment plant. “These nets have to be cut into smaller pieces, only then these are accepted by the plant. So our workers in their spare time cut the nets, segregate other waste from it and then transport the material,” said the beach cleaning personnel. “Since the onset of the monsoon, unprecedented quantities of seaweed washed ashore all along the coastal belt. Our labour force was collecting almost 400 bags a day. However, the treatment plant does not accept it, so we have to store the waste in this area, and with time it disintegrates. Large quantities of tree wood have also washed ashore this monsoon. This is transported to the designated area near the treatment plant at Saligao,” he added.

Oppn grills govt over ‘Covid concession’ given to GoaMiles

Times of India | 13 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 04:40 am

Times of India

13 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 04:40 am

Porvorim: Opposition members questioned tourism minister Rohan Khaunte over the concession given to GoaMiles, the taxi aggregator appointed by the Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC), to tide over loss of business during the pandemic. The issue witnessed a heated discussion after opposition leader Michael Lobo said the aggregator was given a “back-door entry”. Chief minister Pramod Sawant, however, said the members should not “politicise the taxi issue”, even as opposition MLAs said that the concession was an “undue favour to the taxi aggregator”. Aldona MLA Carlos Ferreira said the reason given by the government to offer the concession to GoaMiles – since the taxi service was operating during Covid-19 – cannot be justified because it did not give free service. Khaunte said that unlike other app-based taxi aggregators who charge a commission between 20% to 30%, GoaMiles does not charge any surge prices or commissions from taxi owners. The revenue source is in the form of a convenience fee, ranging from Rs 25 to Rs 140 per ride that is charged to the customer over and above the cab fare. “But within the rates notified by the transport department,” Khaunte said. “Customers paid for the services. Why was GST not collected from it even as customers were charged for the service,” Ferreira said. He added, “If Goa Miles charged less fare, it was under-cutting. When there is undercutting in business, it affects all. It is nothing but a measure to grab the market.” He said that the GTDC board had finalised a policy for all new tourism service providers, including GoaMiles, wherein the service providers were asked to pay 5% of the gross revenue for the financial year 2020-21 and 2021-22 due to the pandemic. “The concession was given to all and not just GoaMiles. We can have a meeting with the chief minister and coastal MLAs. We can fix a rate as well and see what benefits can be offered to families of taxi operators from the 5% revenue collected by the government,” said Khaunte. He added, “First there has to be a consensus to have a taxi aggregator after which other issues can be sorted out.” The minister maintained that the government wants a taxi aggregator to help tourist taxi operators and not to kill their business. He said that Rs 3.34 crore has been collected as GST since the taxi service was introduced in the state, and it was a revenue earning for the government. Besides it paid Rs 6.5 lakh (5% of the gross revenue) to GTDC for February 2020- 2021.

Goa bags fifth place among UTs, city-states in innovation index

Times of India | 16 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 01:42 am

Times of India

16 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 01:42 am

Panaji: Goa bagged the fifth position among Union territories and city-states in the third edition of Niti Aayog’s India innovation index. With a score of 14.93, Goa beat the national average, which is about 14.56. For the Union territories and city-states category, Chandigarh is the top performer, followed by Delhi, while among the 17 major states, Karnataka, with a score of 18.01, is the top performer. The third edition of the index, for 2021, was conducted against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and was released on Thursday. Being one of the country’s coastal regions, the state has shown positive signs in the higher education domain, said the report. With an impressive pupil-teacher ratio of 15:1, the state also registered an increase in PhD enrolments from about 20 to 30 per lakh residents. However, the report said that this has not led to innovation through industrial design, patents and trademarks, where Goa is listed as an under-performer. “Currently, the state has growth potential in areas not just related to tourism, hospitality, or IT, but also food processing, green technology, solid waste management, among other non-conventional businesses and ideas; something Goa is not known for and therefore can tap into,” said the report. Goa has seen moderate improvement in the pillars of investment and knowledge workers which are enabling factors for innovation. This improved performance in the ‘enablers’ was partially visible in its ‘performers’, where the trademarks filed per lakh individuals increased from about 320 to 362. In terms of knowledge diffusion, the state saw a small increase in software exports as a percentage of GSDP, and also in the number of high and medium-high-tech manufacturing entities. Just like the previous edition, there are 7 pillars in the index — five ‘enabler’ pillars measure the inputs and two ‘performance’ pillars measure the output. “States have scored fairly high on some of the enablers, the performing pillars have scored low, which means that the effectiveness of enablers with an average score of 19.50 has not been reflected in the performing pillars where the average score is 9.62,” the report said. Among the enabling factors, Goa’s score is 20.94 at the fourth position. While it scored a score of 8.92 among the factors associated with performance. “This implies that the enablers haven’t been used optimally,” said the report. The ranking is based on the framework of the global innovation index (GII) and expanding the number of indicators from 36 to 66 across seven key pillars.

GCCI supports govt’s stand on taxi app service

Times of India | 16 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 01:11 am

Times of India

16 hours ago | 22-07-2022 | 01:11 am

Panaji: Strongly supporting the government’s stand to introduce an app-based taxi service, Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) said that taxi operators can thrive by adapting a taxi platform that is developed locally. GCCI said that some of the taxi aggregators functioning in other states may not benefit Goa. “Some of the apps which are functional in other states may not address the problems faced by local taxi owners, therefore the app needs to be developed locally. User-friendly initiatives incorporating and providing solutions to day-to-day problems faced by the taxi owners like renewals of permits and licences should be offered online and this facility should be linked to all the government departments concerned,” said the industry body. The taxi owner is the first point of contact, specially to the high-end tourists who come to Goa by air, and the impression that is created is the lasting one, which unfortunately is not something that Goa can be proud of, as the tourists are subjected to exorbitant charges, said GCCI. The association said that an app-based service will help improve the image of Goa as a tourist destination and will also spread the message that Goans really follow the tradition of ‘Atithi Devo Bhav’. GCCI expects a comprehensive app, taking care of problems faced by tourists as well as local taxi owners, is developed, thus creating a sense of financial and operational security for the taxi owners and at the same time ensuring that the visitors to Goa experience their ride in comfort both for their body and soul. Goa State Industries Association, another industry body, said it supports the government in the move to bring in Uber and Ola. Chief minister Pramod Sawant, in a statement made in the floor of the house, said that app-based aggregators are required for the long-term benefit of Goa’s tourism sector.

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