Goans want to reclaim their land from foreigners

They allege that foreigners are buying land in gross violation of FEMA.

GOA: "I want my Goa back," said Rajan Ghate, convenor of the Goa Bachao Manch. This statement provoked 14 tenants on Sunday into ploughing 19,906 square metres of land at Morjim, the North Goa haunt of Russian tourists, which was allegedly bought by two Russians in violation of FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act).

Sunday's ploughing of the land and planting of seeds fulfils the resolution adopted on July 10 by the manch that foreigners would not be allowed to take over land in Goa. There has been no police complaint so far from the two Russians, Leonid Beyzer and Valiulin or Pramod Walke, the Assagao resident, who jointly set up the True Axis Resort Private Limited that bought the land on April 18, 2005 from R & R resorts.

True Axis had earlier gone to court and obtained an injunction against Ghate and Dilip Morje, the son of one of the tenants, preventing them from entering the property at Morjim. However, the other tenants stormed the property with two tractors shouting slogans. They then ploughed the land.

Ghate says that the state's registrar is to blame for accepting affidavits from foreigners without verification whether there is a violation of section 2(v)(i) (B) of FEMA. "In the three year period between 2003 and 2005, 482 foreigners bought property including flats, bungalows and plots of land of different sizes," he told DNA.

But it is also true that panchayats have colluded with locals into selling property to foreigners by violating the laws of the land. "Many foreign nationals after residing for 182 days in Goa are grabbing land without fulfilling the proper criteria," Goa Suraj party president Florian Lobo told DNA.