‘Laying double track for freight trains’: No permission taken from us, says Goa village, panchayat sends stop work notice to RVNL

After over a week of protests by the residents, the village panchayat on Monday sent a stop work notice to the RVNL based on a complaint raised last Saturday by the owner of the land, Shaliny Victoria Barbosa Saksena.

As per the stop work notice, RVNL has been directed to stop its activities immediately and produce legal documents authorising the construction work within three days. Maria Diana Gouveia, the sarpanch of Velsao, said, “I received a complaint from Shalini Barbosa about encroachment on her family’s property. The complaint was made on Saturday, and on Monday, I issued a stop work notice to RVNL. However, work has not stopped, as due a high court order that states that the permission of the panchayat is not required for RVNL to carry out developmental work.”

The residents of Velsao have been protesting against the construction work for over a week.

Orville Dourado Rodriques, founder of Goencho Ekvott, a Velsao-based NGO at the forefront of the protests, said: “No authorisation has been given for the construction by the family that owns the land. There is no deal, no intimation and no agreement. The family was unaware of the work.”

Rodriques added the matter of construction of double railway track on th west side is sub-judice, and the residents have been battling the issue in court for over two-and-a-half years.

Eight days ago, the residents noticed that construction work had begun on the east side. Upon inquiry and noticing the logos on the machinery, the residents realised that the work was being carried out by RVNL. Initially, due to the protests, the work was stopped, but workers returned the next day with police protection, Rodriques said.

“Also, on Tuesday, they dumped construction equipment on church-owned land without permission. We will be taking up this matter as well. We understand this is for transporting coal to industries in Karnataka and Maharashtra. It is not even for a passenger train and the development is not going to benefit Goa,” Rodriques said.

He added, “We are a small village primarily depending on farming… These are our paddy fields… Imagine what will happen if our farmlands are encroached?”

RVNL MD Pradeep Gaur, told the Indian Express on Wednesday morning, “We do work on only the land owned by railways. We don’t do anything illegal. It is understood that some people are even questioning the railways ownership of land where tracks are laid and trains are running for decades.”