Goa uses 55-year-old order to revert 36 lakh sqm land in Sanguem to government

MARGAO: Fifty-five long years after it had issued an order reverting huge tracts of

land

in

Uguem

, Patiem and Costi in Sanguem taluka that were “assigned” to Sociedade Patriotica dos Baldios das Novas Conquistas during the erstwhile Portuguese regime, the state government recently undertook and partly concluded the process of restoring the ownership of the land in its possession based on the June 27, 1966 order. While the Sociedade claims that it stands to lose 36 lakh square metres of land that it had “owned” following the government’s belated execution of the order, scores of locals who had purchased the land from the Sociedade and had built their dwellings on it – blissfully unaware of the archaic order – are now left in the lurch.


The state government maintains that it has merely carried out the rectification in the land records that were long overdue. “The June 27, 1966 order is clear that the land has to be reverted to the government. We are puzzled over how the records weren’t updated all these years,” a highly placed

revenue

department official told TOI.

The government kickstarted the ownership restoration process after the “anomaly” was brought to its notice earlier this year. According to official documents accessed by TOI, after the directorate of settlement and land records (DSLR) identified the corresponding survey numbers as delineated in the 1966 order, the under-secretary (revenue) wrote to the South Goa collector conveying the government’s decision that the 1966 order published in the official gazette was valid.

The June 27, 1966 order, signed by secretary (revenue) N Subramanian states that “the formalities for the reversion have been complied with, rejecting the claim of the said Sociedade against the show cause notice issued to it”.

The Sanguem mamlatdar recently concluded mutations in Form I and XIV (record of land rights) of the promulgated survey records. The exercise of identifying areas falling under non-promulgated survey records is under way. Non-promulgated survey records pertain to areas that had remained excluded from being recorded under Form I and XIV (record of rights). Survey records in Goa were promulgated sometime in 1973-74.

The move, however, has triggered strong opposition from

farmers

in the area. While the Sociedade has moved the high court of Bombay at Goa challenging the deletion of the institution’s name, many farmers are also in the process of taking legal recourse.

“More than 50 residents from Uguem and a few from Costi are absolute owners of the agricultural land under different survey numbers. Being completely dependent on rice cultivation, our ancestors tilled the land for many decades. But within a period of four to five months, the Sanguem mamlatdar, without sending us notices, included the government of Goa, Daman and Diu as co-owner of the

property

,” Milagres Carvalho, an 80-year-old farmer, said.

Residents told TOI that they had purchased the land from the Sociedade and were in possession of it for two generations and that their names were included in the occupants’ column of the Form I & XIV. Recently, when they applied for an updated copy of the Form I and XIV, they were stunned by the modifications.

Tenants who became beneficiaries of the provisions under the Goa Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964, also stand “deprived” of their land ownership status following the government’s abrupt move.

“I was declared owner of the agricultural property in 2001 by the Sanguem mamlatdar under the Tenancy Act and paid money in the government’s treasury office. How can the mamlatdar include the government as co-owner of my property?” said Uguem resident Rosario Carvalho.

The farmers are agitated as they believe their land is being snatched away an IIT campus. “Three sites in Sanguem were identified for setting up the IIT — 13 lakh sq m in Cotarli, about 200ha in Nagvem (near Rivona), and the 36 lakh sq m of Sociedade land in Uguem. As the first two sites were rendered unfeasible — the Cotarli site was mired in litigation, and the Nagvem site necessitated clearance from the forest department, which entailed a long-drawn process — the Uguem site, which was until then presumed to be owned by the Sociedade, was then proposed to the government as another alternative,” a source aware of the development told TOI.

“The state government has thus saved approximately Rs 40 crore which it would have otherwise had to spend towards land acquisition, if at all the site is selected for the IIT campus. The recent statement of the chief minister to the effect that there were attempts to sell government property to the government itself should be seen in that light,” a senior official well-versed with the development said.

Determined to hold on to the land that they have now been dispossessed of, the villagers are trying to “secure” it by installing fresh fences. “We will not allow the government to take over our agricultural land for the sake of the IIT,” said Niquel Cabo, another Uguem farmer.


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