February 10, 2025
Derek O’brien’s Zero Hour mention on the need to preserve the coastal culture of Goa
Sir, smaller States rarely get a chance to have their voices heard here. So, I am happy today to raise the issue of the need to preserve the rich coastal culture of Goa. Sir, the coastal culture of Goa is basically made up of two communities. One is the fishing community with all their great traditions and the other is the toddy-tapping community. These are the two communities. Now, the vibrant communities in these fishing villages – I have been there once or twice and have seen myself – have a great tradition, but now they are going through an existential crisis, for a variety of reasons. It is primarily because of the CRZ, the Coastal Regulation Zones. As a result, these fishermen cannot build homes, cannot do up their homes, cannot park their boats and face all kinds of problems. Worse than that, the trawlers are coming and robbing them of their livelihood. So, the issue here is affecting 20,000 fishermen and about 1 lakh people in this community. Tough times for them! I want to quickly contrast this to what is happening for the fishermen in Bengal. There is a special scheme called ‘Samudra Sathi Scheme’ under which each fisherman gets Rs.10,000 for two months for off-fishing season. There is another scheme called ‘Matsya Jeebi Credit Card’. This is to protect the fishermen so that they do not get duped in a long-term institutional credit. These are the issues. There is also one more issue in Goa relating to salt pans. This is an old Goa tradition of using salt pans. From salt pans, they extricate salt. That too is under trouble. These should be preserved as heritage sites. We appeal to the Government to save the fishermen and to save Goa, as the Supreme Court said, ‘Do not turn it into a concrete jungle’. We must protect that. And what do the people of Goa do? What are the options they have? The last time when they voted, we were hearing slogans. There are two ways to use Zero Hour. One is, you can raise these issues or you can stand up and shout the slogans for your leader. I am using these issues. The Government of Goa is doing nothing. And what was the Opposition doing there? They elected 11 MLAs from the Congress in good faith. But eight Congress MLAs left and went to the BJP. So, who will protect the people of Goa? I appeal to this Government, leave the politics aside and let us get together to help the State.
