Social activist and land loser Jervis Fernandes displaying the tender form of the KRC inviting applications for allocation of restaurant at the Thivim railway station.
MARGAO
A Konkan Railway land loser has cried foul over the criteria adopted by the Konkan Railway Corporation in the tender for the veg/non veg restaurant contract at the Thivim railway station.
The land loser Jervis Fernandes told the media here on Sunday that the KRC has departed from the norm of allotting business and jobs for the land losers and their kith and kin.
Saying that the railways had purchased their land decades ago to lay the Konkan railway at cheap rates on the promise that the interests of the land losers will be protected by providing them jobs and also business facilities, Jervis said the KRC has now gone back on their word to help the land losers.
Citing the instance of a recent tender floated by the KRC to run a veg/non veg restaurant at the Thivim railway station, Jervis said the KRC has imposed a condition that the land loser should have a turn over of Rs three crore in the previous three years. “The base price for the restaurant is pegged Rs 10 lakh, but the KRC has insisted that the land losers should have a turnover of Rs three crores. The question is simple, if the land losers had the turnover of Rs three crore, they would not certainly go for a tender to run a restaurant, but some other business”, he said, while suspecting that the tender has been allegedly tailor made for outsiders. He further said the KRC has put another condition in the contract saying the land loser should have experience in catering business.
Saying this is a ploy to keep the Goans out of the contact to run the restaurant at the Thivim railway station, Jervis said the KRC senior officials have not entertained the land losers when they had gone to petition against the tender.
He said representations have been made to the North Goa MP and Union Minister Shripad Naik and South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha seeking their intervention in the matter. “This is sheer injustice on the Goan land losers. It is clear that the tender has been tailor-made for certain contractors”, he alleged.
