ENCROACHERS: All those who have encroached on the banks of the St Inez nallah and bathed and cooked and filled it with garbage will now be owners of the huts they have built. These may even expand to villas as under the Bhumiputra Act they will be entitled to 250 sq mts of land around it.

By Rajan Narayan

The Goa Bhumiputra Adhikarini Bill rushed through the Legislative Assembly on Friday, July 30 is not meant to benefit the real sons and daughters of Goa, but the migrant labor families who have illegally encroached on government and communidade lands, and even private land. For example, it will be the migrant residents of slum colonies in Zuarinagar, Moti Dongor, Chimbel, Camarabhat and other slums who will be the real beneficiaries.

THE Bhumiputra Adhikarini Bill, which was passed in the Legislative Assembly on Friday, July 30, 2021, is clearly aimed at the vote banks of the top politicians of Goa. It has been timed less than six months before the elections to the Goa Assembly come up in February 2022. The objective of the bill is to capture migrant vote banks. Which is crucial for any party contesting the 2022 elections, as migrants now make up at least 45% of the population of Goa. If the Bhumiputra Adhikarini Bill gets the consent of the governor of Goa and the president of India, than all the residents of Moti Dongor, Fukatnagar (Zuarinagar), Camrabhat, Chimbel and other slum areas of Goa will get permanent rights over the slum homes they have illegally built on communidade, government and private lands.

30 YEARS DOMICILE
UNDER the Bhumiputra Adihkarini Bill all those who have settled in Goa for a minimum of 30 years and have built illegal structures will now be able to claim ownership of it and the land on which they stand. The Bhumiputra Bill is not intended for the benefit of Goans who are the actual bhumiputra. The expression bhumiputra means sons and daughters of the soil. Which means people who have been living in Goa even before Liberation or have been born in Goa.
When Malaysia passed its Bhumiputra Bill it was meant for the original residents of Malaysia and not for the migrant Indian and Chinese population who had virtually taken over the economy of Malaysia. The official language of Malaysia, Malay, was officially declared as Bahasa Malaysia and government schools started to teach in the national language. Those who converted to Islam and intermarried were recognized and given first priority in government jobs and institutions including schools either public or private.
Bahasa Malaysia or Malayu became the official language of the country in public or private sectors. But interestingly, the Malay language which had no indigenous script flourished in Romi or Romani alphabet (akin to Romi Konkani in Goa) although Arabic has been introduced in the country too in modern times.

MIGRANT VOTE BANKS
BUT in Goa the Bhumiputra Bill passed hastily in the Legislative Assembly will not benefit native or niz Goenkar. It is meant exclusively for the migrant people from the rest of India who have been flooding into Goa ever since Liberation in 1961. The first wave of migrants post-Liberation was as high as 30% of the then Goan population of around six lakh. The first wave took place in the first decade after Liberation.
This was because the colonial Portuguese regime had not started any local language education institutions in Goa. The regime had not even started an Industrial Training Institute (ITI), let alone an engineering college. So to meet the demand for teachers for the hundreds of schools that Goa’s first chief minister, Dayanand Bandodkar, started when he became chief minister, they had to be imported from Maharashtra. The schools too were in Marathi because though Konkani is the mother tongue of 98% of the Goan population it did not have a recognized or advanced script as Marathi had. Till the Assembly declared that Konkani in the Devanagri script will be the official language in 1987.
The language of culture and religious rituals in Goa is Marathi. Similarly, all the engineers in the electricity, water supply and other technical departments, had to be imported from outside Goa. To improve the quality of the Goa Medical College (GMC) and hospital and bring it on par with the rest of the country, doctors had to be imported from other states. Till a decade ago 90% of the deans and heads of department at the GMC were from outside the State. So were almost 90% of the nurses.

INDUSTRIAL LABOR
AS Goa started a programs of development as part of independent India, labor was needed for various projects like the expansion of the Mormugao Port Trust. It was the only Muslim minister and MLA in Goa at that time, Shaikh Hassan, who imported labor from Karnataka for the MPT and the Goa Shipyard. Labor was also needed for the Zuari Agro Fertilizer Plant, which was one of the first large industries set up in Goa.
The demand for labor increased exponentially when the industrial estates were established. A large number of Indian and multinational pharma companies set up factory plants in Goa, particularly at the Verna plateau land and for which companies the Central government had declared a tax holiday for five years in 1999. Since Goa did not have any technically qualified manpower, they had to be imported from outside the State. With every successive decade, the migration into Goa only intensified.
Construction work boomed, workers were needed for putting up the new buildings, including government buildings like the new Secretariat and Legislative Assembly complex of blocks in Porvorim. The bulk of construction labor in Goa still comes from Karnataka or Maharashtra. The situation was complicated by the fact that Goans had no tradition of manual labor. The only manual labor Goans were used to was working in their agricultural fields and in the mines operating.
Mining has been suspended and generation next does not want to work on labor intensive farmland. In any case mechanization has led to a sharp cut in the labor needed for farming. When waste became a problem and the new formed panchayat bodies took over waste management, labor was needed to collect the garbage and transport it to selected dumping grounds.

LABOR FOR TRAWLERS
WHEN fishing became mechanized and trawlers replaced the traditional ramponkar community in the 70s, the labor was imported from Orissa, Kerala, Gujarat and Jharkhand. The owners may have been Goans, but even today 80% of the labor working on trawlers are is outside labor and not from Goa. The Goans who went to the Gulf came back and invested in taxis. But very few of them drove the taxis, they hired migrant drivers. Goans in turn migrated to clean the airports and washrooms at Heathrow Airport in London and the UK, but they would not dream of doing such menial manual work in their home state of Goa.

SHACK EMPLOYEES
WHICH is not surprising as there is a similar trend in Kerala where the locals have gone off to the Gulf countries and the world over manual jobs are done by migrant labor. Admittedly, one reason why Goans do not mind doing manual jobs outside India, is because the wages are much higher.
Over time even the employees in Goan-owned beachside shacks became migrants, the shacks are a mainstay of tourism and especially charter tourism where tourists like to bask in the sunshine and be served their creature comforts by a nearby shack. The Nepali who came to be watchmen became Chinese cooks in the shacks and local eateries. When the gated colonies came up and needed security, again the migrants filled in the vacancies. When the number of shops increased, the sales staff were made up of migrants.

      migrant return    

UNLIKE in the case of other states, a larger proportion of migrants coming to Goa decided to stay back and make their homes here instead of going back to their own home states. This is because the wages for unskilled labor is highest in Goa, ranging from Rs8,000 to Rs10,000. In addition if the migrants were married their wives too picked up another Rs10,000 or more working as domestic servants. Even during the ghar wapasi following covid-19 and the lockdowns, the only migrants who went back were the comparatively new generation of migrants. Those who could not pay their rents because they were out of job had no choice but to go back to their home states. There are at least three lakh or more migrants who have lived in Goa for over 30 years and more and built their houses small or big wherever they could.

THIRD GENERATION MIGRANTS
EVERYWHERE in Goa now you can see second and third generation migrants. The most notable example is the Goa Medical College where at least 50% of the nurses are from Kerala. Similarly, in the field of education also and particularly in higher education, the majority of the teaching staff is non-Goan. Till recently the editors of all the English and Marathi papers were non-Goans. There is a severe shortage of teachers in government engineering and other professional colleges.
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
THE Constitution of India guarantees freedom of movement. Any citizen of India, including residents of Goa post-Liberation, can live and work in any part of the country. They can buy property in any part of the country, including Goa. Excepting Jammu & Kashmir and the North East states, anyone who has stayed continuously in a state or a city for a number of years is entitled to domiciliary status. Which means they have equal rights on par with the local population.
So much so that any migrant who has stayed in Goa for 15 years is entitled to admission to professional colleges and government jobs. They don’t have to change their names as they are entitled to jobs and admission by right.
In the case of the Bhumiputra Bill, the benefits will go only to migrants who have stayed in Goa continuously for more than 30 years. Which on the face of it seems fair, as someone like me who has spent 38 years in Goa and more than half my life, is entitled to claim the status and rights available to Goans.
But no government, including the State of Goa, has the right to legalize illegal encroachments, regardless of whether belong to Goans or migrants. No migrant or Goan can just occupy a vacant plot of communidade, government or private land, and and claim ownership. But this is precisely what Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s government seeks to permit with the Bhumiputra Bill.
Over the years migrants have encroached on communidade and government land with the patronage of politicians. Which is how all the huge slum shanties have come up in Chimbel and Zuarinagar, and Moti Dongor and other parts of Goa. There is no end to them. The Goan residents of Nagoa and Verna and villages near the industrial estate have witnessed large scale encroachment of vacant land. There are of course many cases of Goan bhatkar and even munkar building tiny rooms to rent out to new waves of migrants coming into Goa.

MIGRANTS NOT GOENKARS
UNDER the Bhumiputra Bill migrants who are not niz Goenkar will be entitled to purchase the property they have occupied illegally at a token price. If a Goan wants to buy property he will have to pay ten times the amount, depending on where he wants to purchase the land or flat. The most objectionable part of the Bhumiputra Bill is that even orchard and perhaps agricultural land occupied by migrants may be legalized. The Bhumiputra Act will supercede even any rental agreement migrants may have signed with the landlord.
For example, if a migrant family has occupied private land belonging to a Goan and is paying a rent for it, he may be able to claim possession of the property without making payment to any landlord. The Bhumiputra Adhikarini Bill is not only against the real bhumiputra, the niz Goenkar, but clearly illegal. The government cannot override the conversion rules which do not permit construction on orchard and agriculture land. You have to get the permission of the Town & Country Department and the changes have to be notified by the PDAs.
But under the new Bhumiputra bill the designated authority which will probably be the mamlatdar who permits migrant people to take legal possession of the property he has encroached on. This is like telling a thief who has stolen your mobile or your bike or car that he can keep it since you have not claimed it for over a year. From any perspective the Bhumiputra bill is immoral and illegal.

MUNKAR & TENANCY
IT will be argued that Goans do not need to be covered as they are already enjoying the benefit of the Tenancy & Munkar Act. The expression Tenants refers to Goans who have been cultivating the land of the bhatkar for generations. So under the Tenancy Act the tenant is entitled to purchase the land he has been cultivating at a token price.
Similarly, under the Munkar Act, the housekeeping staff of the bhatkar who have been permitted to build small homes on the property of the bhatkar, is entitled to 250 sq meters in rural areas and 150 sq meters in urban areas, again at a token price. But what is not realized is that only one tenant or one munkar of the entire family of the tenant or munkar is entitled to the benefit. So if the tenant or munkar have ten children as it is common, they could not possibly share 150 sq meters. So the majority of even tenants or munkar did not benefit from the Tenancy & Munkars Act.
At least a decade ago when prices were still reasonable they could have purchased the property. But at prevailing rates only outsiders can afford to buy property in Goa. The minimum price for a two-bedroom flat in Caranzalem and Dona Paula is over Rs1 crore.

FOLLOW MUMBAI MODEL
YES, migrants do need affordable places to stay. If they have been staying in Goa for 30 years, they are entitled to a roof over their head. But the first priority must be providing accommodation to Goans who do not have a home to call their own. In theory the Housing Board is supposed to offer houses to lower income, middle income and high income groups. But prices charged by the Housing Board are almost equal to that of private builders. It doesn’t benefit the vast majority of Goans. Apart from votes, from a compassionate point of view housing may be provided to the migrants.
The best option is to promote the Slum Re-development Schemes as in Mumbai. Even as we talk, a huge re-development scheme is underway in Dharavi, famous as the biggest slum in the world. There are over 10 lakh people staying in Dharavi. What the Maharashtra government is doing is providing builders an incentive to build really tall 20-storyed buildings or taller so that slum dwellers can be given 300 sq feet apartments at very reasonable prices.
The builder can sell remaining floor area index to private parties. The principle being that those who can afford to buy expensive houses subsidize the poor with limited income. There is no reason why a similar scheme cannot be started for the residents of Camrabhat who are living in highly insanitary conditions on the banks of the rotting and much encroached St Inez nallah (once St Inez creek). Ditto for the residents of Chimbel or Fukatnagar or Moti Dogor. Why offer migrants, even if they have stayed in Goa for 30 years, scarce orchard and agriculture land up to 250 sq meters, which puts them on par with the Goan munkar.

NOT AGAINST MIGRANTS
WE have nothing against migrant. I have lived in Goa for 38 years as journalist and I am entitled to government quarters. I have never asked for it. I could have if I wanted to, like many several government servants from outside, encroached on communidade land and build a palace for myself! Instead, I have been staying in rented apartments paying an average of Rs20,000 per month. In the last 20 years I must have paid more than Rs1 crore plus, plus worth of rentals. I don’t want other migrants to bear such a heavy burden. They cannot afford it. But the government certainly can give them flats of up to 40 sq meters in high rise buildings Mumbai re-development style so that they may at least live their life with dignity.
However, it may be noticed that fake bhumiputra, who are actually migrants, will have to produce house tax, electricity and water bills, to prove that they have been living in Goa in a house they claim they have been living in continuously for 30 years!