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FRESH SURGE IN ACTIVISM!
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FRESH SURGE IN ACTIVISM!

Jan 17- Jan 23, 2026, Protest January 16, 2026 , by

For the first time in my 40 plus years in Goa the residents of Chimbel confronted Santa Cruz don Rudolf Fernandes. The police were called to guard Rudolf against the protestors.

FOR the first time in the 40 plus years that I’ve lived in Goa I have witnessed the unprecedented phenomenon of citizens of Santa Cruz constituency confronting their undisputed don Rudolf Fernandes. It would have been unthinkable that citizens would actually march to the residence of Rudolf Fernandes and demand accountability for supporting the Unity Mall project in Chimbel village. The protest against the Unity Mall has been going on for more than three months now.
As N Govind, the chairperson of the Biodiversity Board, told “Goan Observer,” the site of the Unity Mall and the other mega project the Prashasan Stambh, are wetland areas. The Unity Mall is supposed to be a mega supermarket serving as an outlet for the artisanal products made by crafts people of Goa and the rest of the country. It is apparently a pet project of Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. The Unity Mall is reportedly a huge multi-storeyed structure which will also have recreation zones. It is expected to house multiple restaurants and of course an INOX auditorium and more, perhaps even a gambling arcade.
According to the activists the project will destroy a fresh water lake which has served as a reservoir of supplying drinking water for the people of Santa Cruz and Panjim right from pre-Portuguese era. It is one of their sacred places. Chimbel locals even invoke the help of the local deity to protect the fragile ecology of the vanishing wetlands of Chimbel. The panchayat of Chimbel under pressure from the villagers passed a resolution opposing the Unity Mall which is seen by Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte as another jewel in the crown of Goa Tourism.

DOUBLE-ENGINE GOVERNMENT
 IT looked for a while as though the double-engine government had second thoughts on the project. Suddenly however, the locals found that work had already started on the project with heavy machinery like bulldozers and the like appearing at the site. The anti-Unity Mall agitation was renewed with much greater frenzy now. There was a huge gram sabha meeting at which not only the locals but independent activists from other parts of Goa joined the rally to stop the Unity Mall and the Prashasan Stambh.
The MLAs, even of the Opposition, who had kept away from the agitation too after Justice Ferdino Rebello’s call for a total revolution to protect Goa’s wetlands, forests and hills, for the first time last week, too have started supporting the agitation. Leader of the Opposition Yuri Alemao and the Aldona MLA Carlos Alvares joined the mega rally against the duo mega projects of Chimbel. Clearly, the fact that a former chief justice has come to their support has infused the people of Chimbel with fresh energy and more important – hope. That the government would wake up and listen to their side of the story of development or destruction as it will impact them long term.
In all the six months the people of Chimbel were fighting to scrap the Unity Mall were in vain. None of the activists of the residents of Chimbel had dared to confront don Rudolf Fernandes who controls the constituency of Santa Cruz with muscle and money power. Nobody has dared question any of the decisions of policy of Rudolf Fernandes who is amongst the 11 Congressmen who defected to the BJP. Rudolf Fernandes had not raised his voice even once against the twin projects of the Unity Mall and the Prashasan Stambh – both of which would undoubtedly destroy the peace and serenity of the Chimbel village.
Perhaps Rudolf and Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte who initiated the project, thought they could get away because Chimbel is now largely populated by migrants from various parts of the country. There is a sprawling slum in the village with over 10,000 voters, this has been the vote bank of Rudolf Fernandes and his late mother “Mummy Dearest” Victoria Fernandes. In the wake of the call at the meeting on January 6, 2026 at the Menezes Braganza Hall by Justice Ferdino Rebello, for the first time the residents of Chimbel led by activists went directly confront the local MLA Rudolph Fernandes.
It is laughable but true that the police who were called in to protect the don of Santa Cruz from his voters who were threatening to storm his house. They did storm his house, brushing apart the police cordon thrown around it. They demanded that Rudolf should come out and speak to them. A rattled Rudolf was forced to issue a statement saying he would abide by the wishes of the people. But he also started casting aspersions on the activists led by the Goa Revolutionary party MLA claiming that he would expose those funding their agitation against him.

CM REASSURES PROTESTORS
INTERESTINGLY, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has agreed to have a dialogue with the protestors. This despite his earlier claim that the Rs400 crore fully centrally funded Unity Mall project would be a boost to the traditional craftsmen of Goa and that the project had obtained all the permissions required.
The war cry amongst the activists now is freedom from fear or “bhiv pachi garaz na” which is the pet reassurance of Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant. In Arambol the chief minister has overruled Vishwajit Rane over the permission given to cut a hill to release two lakh square meters for a residential housing project including a 5-star hotel. We understand the chief minister has directed Vishwajit Rane to reverse the notification for the conversion of the hill into a settlement zone. The CM also forced Vishwajit Rane to backtrack on the permission given for a mega housing project on the banks of the extremely eco-sensitive Carambolim lake close to the Karmali Konkan Railway Station. The Carambolim lake is virtually a bird sanctuary and a transit point for migrataory birds. Vishwajit Rane was forced to issue a stop work order for the mega residential project which the TCP had cleared some three months ago.
The problem is that earlier, activists were not closely monitoring notifications in the gazette issued on various conversions cleared by the TCP. Now of course the gazette is being minutely scrutinized for every new violation of Section 39 of the Town & Country Planning Act. Every conversion which involved the filling of paddy fields or the cutting of hills and forests is closely monitored. A network of activists has come up who support each other. The extent of the damage to the ecology of Goa is now being revealed. What came as a real shock was the revelation by Mandrem’s Maharashtra Gomantak Party MLA Jit Arolkar, that in the last two years over 60 lakh square meters of agricultural land and green cover have been converted in the taluka of Pernem.
Huge developments are under way in and around the MOPA where the airport is. Amongst the projects that have been “green lighted” by Vishwajit Rane and the TCP is a Las Vegas kind of gambling hub being promoted by Jaydev Modi of the Deltin Group. The excuse or alibi for clearing this proposal was that eventually the offshore casinos in the Mandovi river could move to the gambling city.
Vishwajit Rane was of course prompt to deny the claim of the MGP MLA who is a partner of the BJP in the Pramod Sawant government. The chief minister was of course forced to take cognizance of the complaint lodged by an ally MLA Jit Arolkar. Very cleverly Vishwajit Rane issued a clarification claiming that only two lakh square meters have been permitted to be converted in the recent past.

JUSTICE REBELLO STEPS IN WITH GUIDANCE
VISHWAJIT Rane is brazen. The reporters covering the ongoing Assembly session confronted him on Monday, January 11 on the opening day of the Assembly session. Vishwajit Rane told the media that he was not aware of the comments of Justice Ferdino Rebello and the charter of demands drawn up for the larger good of Goa. He was not aware of the public meeting convened by Justice Rebello at the Institute Menezes Braganza hall on January 7 in Panjim. Vishwajit Rane blandly told the media that he had not violated any laws or rules, that he had gone strictly by the provision of the TCP rules. He did not add that he had pushed through amendments which totally destroyed the RP2021 which was committed to protecting the fragile ecology of the coastal state of Goa.
Most shockingly is the revelation of the former chief justice that the hill cutting that has been going on for the last few years is grossly illegal. Apparently, the hill cutting was carried out by the TCP on instructions from Vishvajit Rane to private parties concerned. The modus operandi of the private parties is to contest the land contour plan, submit alternative plan by mercenary architects to show hill gradients much lower than standard stipulation. The hill cutting sanctions were apparently given on the basis of falsified maps submitted by private promoters of the mega super luxury housing projects on the cherished hills of Goa.
The most blatant being the super luxury villa project by the DLF Group which built Gurgaon on the outskirts of national capital Delhi. The project was supposed to come up on hill slopes and indeed on top of the hills of Reis Magos Fort which is virtually heritage zone, with the Reis Magos Church here. It may be remembered that Reis Magos Fort was used as a jail during the freedom fighting years in Goa. In the face of a legal challenge the DLF was forced to downsize the project.
It is not widely known that it was the venerable Tata Group that first inaugurated hill cutting in Goa with their multi-storyed complex of residential blocks at Alto Betim. For the last two decades you can see the Tata Residential Complex from across the river Mandovi, rising to the skies. Hopefully there will be judicial intervention to stop any further cutting of hills which are natural aquifers of water and indeed, cutting of hills in areas from Panjim to Mapusa to Sancoale in Vasco where another Tata housing project is coming up.

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