Infrastructure projects: Day after CM’s remarks, protests across Goa

Villagers in several areas assembled across landmarks in Goa on the occasion of Independence Day as they staged symbolic protests against several infrastructure projects, which they fear will impact natural and heritage habitats.

A day after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that “all the protests” to the projects are coming from NRIs settled abroad, local residents came to designated locations at 8 am to hold banners and stand in solidarity, mainly against three linear projects — a power line, double tracking of existing railways, and widening of highways, cutting through Western Ghats and crawling through the villages right to the western coast.