Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Tuesday called the threat of disruption of the BRICS conference, issued by the All Goa Fishermen’s Union (AGFU), the umbrella body of various fishing and traditional coastal communities on Monday over their opposition to proposed marine projects, as an “extreme, unwarranted and misplaced reaction.”
On Monday, the umbrella organisation of traditional fishermen and boat-owners gave an ultimatum to the Centre that if projects such as dredging of the Mondovi and Zuari, Betul, satellite port proposed for Goa, were not scrapped and legalisation of the traditional houses of coastal communities was not undertaken by setting up a district-level committee, they would disrupt the BRICS event, which is scheduled to be held here later in October.
The Chief Minister further said such an extreme stand is never conducive in a democracy. First, he recalled that he had made it clear in front of the Minister for Shipping Nitin Gadkari that the proposed satellite port was just an idea put before the people for their comments at this stage. Therefore, the question of imposing it on the people did not arise.
“Secondly, please tell me what is the connection between BRICS and these marine projects?” asked Parsekar, questioning the motive behind such extreme statements.
The AGFU on Monday had slammed the BJP government at the Centre and in the State for “taking the fishermen and traditional coastal communities of Goa for granted and imposing anti-fishermen projects on Goa’s fragile coastal ecology.”
Disassociating from their demand to disrupt BRICS, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik on Tuesday backed the demands of the fisher communities to scrap all the projects they had mentioned. He went to the extent of calling the proposed satellite port a “land grab scam”.
General Secretary of AGFU, Olencio Simoes, had said apart from scrapping the various projects, the government must also must constitute “district-level committees” and notify fishing villages to legalise all traditional houses in line with CRZ notification, 2011, to protect fishermens' houses at Baina in the port town of Vasco da-Gama.
He said they had other demands such as extending the monsoon fishing ban period from 61 to 90 days, and strict implementation of the ban on use of LED lights, bull trawling and high-speed engines.
“We will tell the world that in the name of development this government is trying to displace the fishermen and destroy the environment of the State,” he said referring to their threat to disrupt the BRICS event.