Aleixo says govt will comply with NGT ruling on Borim bridge
MARGAO
A day after Water Resources Department (WRD) Minister Subhash Shirodkar said the government would take the new Borim bridge proposal to its logical conclusion after the land acquisition is complete by October 20, Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira said the government will respect the judgement of the National Green Tribunal in the event the bridge does not find favour with the courts.
Asked to comment on the WRD Minister’s contention that the land acquisition will be complete by October 20, Sequeira said the WRD minister may be right in saying so. The Environment Minister, who represents Nuvem constituency, however, hastened to remind that since the Loutolim villagers have knocked the doors of the NGT, the government will respect the court order. “The villagers have gone to the NGT. At the end of the day, the NGT will decide. We will respect the Court order. When the NGT judgement comes, government will have no option than to accept the order,” he said.
Making his stand clear on the new High-Level Borim bridge, Sequeira said he has been saying from the beginning that a new Borim bridge is required, but the question that remains to be resolved is the alignment.
He said the government is trying to acquire the bare minimum land to build the bridge. “The land acquisition proposal may have gone for land admeasuring 1.20 sq mtrs. But, the PWD is working to reduce the land to around 80,000 sq mtrs. I have still told them how best to further reduce the land. It is a question of few days before the PWD will come out with the exact quantum of land required for the bridge,” he said.
He added: “I have been trying to help the farmers agitating against the bridge. I had taken a delegation of farmers to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant as well as the Union Minister for Road Surface Transport Nitin Gadkari. Based on these meetings, the PWD officials were told to do a fresh study how best to reduce the land required for the project.”
