Villagers In Goa Protest Against Building IIT, CM Says Govt Is Open To Discuss The Issue

Shel-Melaulim village in Sattari taluka of North Goa district has been the site of the protest against the proposed IIT in the area with local residents insisting they will not part with their land for the project.

Indian Institutes of Technology should not worry about rankings, as long as its students and alumni perform well, IIT-Bombay Director Subhasis Chaudhuri said on Sunday.

Panaji: The protest against the construction of the proposed Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at a remote village in North Goa on Monday entered its seventh day and the movement is gaining momentum everyday as most more and more people are joining in support of the locals. Shel-Melaulim village in Sattari taluka of North Goa district has been the site of the protest against the proposed IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) in the area with local residents insisting they will not part with their land for the project. Hundreds of people from areas surrounding Shel- Melaulim joined the protest as they gathered in a nearby forest. Shubham Shivolkar, a protester and resident of Shel-Melaulim said that the protest is not against the IIT campus, but about saving the land. “The fight is not against IIT campus. It is about saving our land for posterity. People are not interested in IIT campus because they want to save their land.” As the protest is growing day by day, Chief Minister of Goa Pramod Sawant has said that the government is open for talks. “We are open to discuss the issue. The government is ready to discuss it. We want to make the IIT there. We do not want to cause them (the villagers) any trouble. I do not want to cause anybody any trouble or inconvenience but they should support us in the development,” Sawant said. Sawant also said that the demarcation work would resume after the issue had settled down. Last week, at least 12 policemen and several villagers were injured when they clashed in forest areas of Shel- Melaulim. The villagers are opposing the land demarcation process initiated by the state government. Since IIT Goa has been functioning from a temporary campus at the Goa Engineering College since 2014. In May last year, the Goa government had formally transferred around 10 lakh sq. meters of land in Melaulim village in North Goa for setting up of IIT-Goa.