Pilerne forum complains against illegal hill cutting

PANAJI: Continuing its movement against alleged illegalities in their village, the Pilerne Citizens Forum has now complained of illegal hill cutting and burning of a forest in land that does fall under the settlement area.
The illegal hill cutting and burning of a forest alarmed Pilerne villages who alerted members of the Pilerne Citizens Forum. After verification, the forum has sent letters complaining against the same to the Pilerne village panchayat, the deputy collector of Bardez, the town and country planning department and the forest department.
The forum has stated that illegal hill cutting and burning of a forest is under way in survey number 89/4 in Marra village, which is part of Pilerne. The complaint to the deputy collector states, "We have verified that the said survey number does not fall in the settlement zone as per the Regional Plan 2001. Besides as per the zoning shown in the draft Regional Plan 2021,survey number 89/4 fails partly in orchard land and also partly bears a no development slope. Further, we have verified that there are no gazette changes whatsoever through which survey number 89/4 has been changed to settlement. Importantly, we are still in the process of planning the Regional Plan 2021 for the villages of Pilerne and Marra."
The forum has urged the authorities to take immediate action against the culprits and to get the site restored back to its original form.
Last month, the forum had pointed to another alleged illegality in the village in the form of a construction on the edge of Savllem lake. On February 22, 2009, the forum had even threatened to approach the high court if their village panchayat failed to heed the directives of the town and country planning (TCP) department and the block development officer to stop the work of a huge residential project in survey number 206/2 on the edge of Pilerne's Savllem lake.