The members of the Dhado Khazan Tenants Association and Farmers’ Association of Carambolim showed their displeasure over the illegalities and gross violation committed by the chairman of the khazan Dhado Carambolim Tenants association and urged the Goa chief Minister Pramod Sawant and authority concerned to look into the matter at Carambolim Panchayat on Saturday.
Speaking during the press conference, Locals farmer Sadhu Kolkar said that “There are lot of illegalities committed by the present committee which has affected the smooth functioning and ethical practices in the association. There has been misappropriation of fund. Every year the khazan land is auctioned and last time the bid was won at 70.03 lakhs. However the bidder failed to deposit the said amount till date which as per our association rule, he had to deposit within 48 hours. This is a major scam in the association. The association doesn’t have proper accounts and have failed to give details of the books of accounts when asked for,”
“On request through RTI, we were shocked to get the reply from the association which denied any information stating that the CA’s office being closed due to pandemic,” added Sadhu
“The previous committee term expired in April 2020 and they want to hurriedly hold the elections without updating the voters list. Our request to the association was to update the voting list as many of our previous members (almost 90 percent) have died and their legal heir should have been included in the committee as they also hold the right to the Khazan land. Our demand is that the association members list be updated as directed by the court earlier and then the elections should be held, till then the ad-hoc committee should be appointed to handle all the matters,” added Sadhu.
While on the other hand, Zilla Panchayat Member Dhaku Madkaikar said “We approached High court regarding this but the date was set for the hearing on November 4. Which will not help us in anyway since the elections are scheduled for October 12 and our demand is to postpone the elections till all these demands are met or atleast till the members list is updated. The local farmers have been affected as the Manas (fish farm) has affected the regular farming activities due to the flooding of the fields and the association has failed to meet the directives of the court wherein they had to ensure that the farms should have been dry at earliest from April 15 so that the traditional farmers could practice farming, however, they failed to do so,”
Social Activists Tara Kerkar mentioned about the illegalities practiced which are affecting the farmers in the locality. Their greed for expansion has seen many fields being submerged under water which are also used as Khazans. This has affected the farmers of the village who have been crying for help feom a long time, and we considered their request and demanded the association to look into, but much to our dismay they paid no heed to our demand. We request the government to look into the matter and take proper action.”
The people who gathered at the press conference raised their voice in unison and requested to get their rights or they would boycott the elections which are scheduled to be held on October 12.
