All these years the slums at Monte Hill were not only on a higher ground, they were also out of reach of the government.
Generationsof policemen, district SPs, Collectors and those in the higher echelons, didonly what they were supposed to, with the criminal gangs of Moti Dongor –nothing. As the gangs grew in strength and intensified their rivalries, theslum too mushroomed in a precarious illegal to semi legal to almost legalgrowth path.
Theslum is festering. It’s a basket case of all that can go wrong with any city.It is Goa’s Dharavi. Two ground level reservoirs there give water to the entireAquem aea. These have been contaminated because the slum dwellers haveallegedly broken them to draw water for washing and bathing. Though MLADigambar Kamat has denied this, an RTI activist Raju Iyer has a said that whenthe reservoir was last cleaned following his petition in court, skeletons ofdogs were found there.
A mancalled ND Agarwal plans to change all that. The South Goa collector, the sameman who led the charge when illegal structures on the Baina beach weredemolished in June 2004, is working on a mandate to clear the slums inspite offierce local opposition. Agarwal has already demolished 36 of them and theAdvocate General has informed the High Court that the rest will be demolishedion six months time.
Thisgovernment must allow this to happen. The apprehension is that the 2000 votesof Moti Dongor are far too lucrative for any government to discard. When pushcomes to shove, the need for these votes offsets the need to free the landbelonging to the communidade of Aquem. Agarwal’s battle will ultimately be withhis own government, which has sought to regularise all illegal structures oncommunidade land.
TheBJP, records state, has never really pledged to rid Monte hill of its slum.During one of the elections prior to the recent one, Manohar Parrikar andShripad Naik had jointly pledged to support the people of Moti Dongor in theirelection speeches. Parrikar had said that would ensure that a Rs 350 crorekitty for slum development would be spent at Moti Dongor. Naik had said ‘TheBJP will ensure your protection.”
MotiDongor has always been a lucky recipient of political patronage and protectionfrom successive leaders. Babu Azgaonkar, Babu Naik, Digambar Kamat (known asBaba). After the two Babus and one Baba, will Bhai Manohar be Moti Dongor’snext benefactor? We hope not.
