Cortalim turns violent, CM asures to stop work at Meta Strips

| 04 April 2000 09:53 IST

The year-long agitation against the controversial Meta Strips project in South Goa has turned violent with agitators blocking the national highway here and burning down state-owned buses while the state government has gone ahead allowing production of brass strips and foils in the factory.

Following violent protests like stoning and burning the state-owned buses and blocking the traffic going to three major towns at the Cortalim junction near Zuari bridge since morning, chief minister Francisco Sardinha has now announced that all the works at the controversial plant would be stopped from Thursday.

Mathany Saldhana, one of the fasting leader and the ZP member who is sitting on the fast unto death for the last nine days in Panaji along with 15 others, however said they would withdraw the fast only when the work would be actually stopped. The indifferent attitude of the authorities to the hunger strike has ultimately led to the violent actions.

Though the government has ruled out any possibility of scrapping the allegedly pollutant plant owned by the Group of Jindals, Sardinha has once again appealed to the agitating villagers to accept the offer of setting up an experts committee, headed by a retired judge, to study the pollution aspect.

He has even summoned an emergency cabinet meeting tomorrow afternoon to take a formal decision in this regard. The Anti Meta Strips Action Committee however is yet to respond to the proposal, stating that they want nothing less than scrapping of the project, without even going into the pollution aspect once again.

After burning two buses on Saturday, the agitation turned more violent today morning when the furious villagers stoned around seven buses and burnt its tyres, paralysing the traffic along the highway heading for Panaji, Margao and Vasco till late evening. The 10- km stretch from Cortalim to Nuvem got converted into a real battlefield with police opening fire while one police officer also got seriously injured in the stone pelting.

Residents of five villages near Vasco have been agitating for over a year now, demanding scrapping of the project fearing air, noise and water pollution. The project worth Rs 250 crore is owned by Sushil Khaitan, son-in-law of Dr Sitaram Jindal, CMD of the Jindal Aluminium Ltd.

In spite of the government's stand not to allow any pollutant project in the tourist state, the AMCAC as well as the local Church have been alleging that the pollutant project was cleared by the former Congress government in a fraudulent manner, involving crores of rupees of kickbacks.

As the project has sough all the necessary clearances including the state pollution control board and indirect green signal from the central pollution control authorities, Sardinha says he simply cannot scrap it without environmental experts probing into it. He has even offered due representation for the experts suggested by the AMCAC on it.

Though Dr Jindal has openly accused the Church for sponsoring the agitation claiming that the Church is not interested in local development, Sardinha prefers to play safe with the Church, which plays vital role during elections in the Catholic-dominated areas here. "Dr Jindal is a fool to make such accusations. The priests, as human beings, definitely have a right to participate in people's movement", he says.

While allowing the project to be completed, industries minister Alexio Sequeira has also justified his action of providing protection to the controversial unit. "It is unfair to crucify someone without a trial", he says, after failing to reach amicable settlement last night with some of the AMCAC leaders.

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