Ponda’s precious green hills under threat amidst rapid urbanisation
PONDA: The temple town of Ponda is surrounded with rich green forests and hills. Geographically, Ponda is situated in a crater and is therefore known as Fond or Fonya (crater).
However, due to growing urbanisation of the town and surrounding village panchayats, the need has arisen for development works and apartment blocks to accommodate the growing population. But with the coming of commercial and residential complexes, some of these green areas and hills are slowly vanishing, with builders having a field day. Even some government projects such as Sewage Treatment Plants are built in green fields due to shortage of land.
The plots on hills in the taluka are purchased at a cheap rate. For long, the villagers of Mangueshi and Curti have been raising their voices and even led protests against such activities. They have physically stopped some instances of hill-cutting. However, some greedy people do find a way to destroy the hills.
In the past, Mangueshi villagers have even had filed a case against a mega project and stopped its construction on a hill in the forested area. The hills in the taluka, which are no-development zones, are the source for many natural springs, house medicinal trees and provide water for recharging wells and agricultural activities on the foothills.
The hills have not fallen victim only to construction activities. The hills are destroyed for two reasons – for widening of the National Highway and landfilling for elevated roads. Thus vast forest cover has been lost for road widening. Beside this the hills are cut especially by the side of NH or the bypass roads of NH for construction of residential and commercial projects. If this continues then Ponda is soon going to become a concrete jungle, with building replacing its greenery.
Viraj Sapre, social worker from Ponda, called on environmentalists and citizens to rise up and take action, before all hills are destroyed. Environmentalist Sandeep Parkar said, ” There are laws in place, but they need implementation.” Citing his own case, he said he had filed complaint against one structure in no development zone (NDZ) but till today there has been no action. Instead it was inaugurated by a political party leader.
Parkar said that laws are getting diluted and they need to be made stringent. “No construction activities should be permitted in no-development zones or hills at any cost. The laws are made with certain intentions to protect forests, nature and environment which need to be enforced,” he said.
