The Big Goa Land Grab
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ast December, Nicholas Papa and Michael Cooper got an early Christmas present: A show cause notice from the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE). It carried two messages: Your home may soon be confiscated; you will be fined three times the land’s value.
Papa and Cooper (Nick and Mick, as they call themselves) moved to Goa from the UK nine years ago. In Aldona, a few kilometres from the beach, they bought a bungalow for Rs. 30 lakh and spent another Rs. 18 lakh renovating it, intending to retire there on Cooper’s pension fund. Under the stress of possibly losing their life savings and home, Cooper, 65, had a mental breakdown this January. “They want us to leave,” says Papa, “but won’t let us sell our house, won’t let us gift it. We gave up everything to come here, and now we will lose it all.”
More than 400 foreigners — mostly British — have received similar notices from the DoE.
Paradise Lost
The story of Westerner’s choosing Goa as a place to settle down began when Western hippies first discovered Goa’s beaches. Certainly, laid-back North Goa lured many smitten visitors to set up home there. From 2000 to 2005, the number of foreign landowners swelled. Many were Britons who planned to retire there, on pension or dole money.
By 2004, land values — and tensions — were rising. Many foreigners opened profitable businesses; some foreigner-owned shacks started doing better than Goan ones. Christmas Eve 2004 saw a mob led by the sarpanch of Anjuna village in North Goa attack six foreign-owned restaurants, forcing them to close.
Come 2005, values had got so high that a land grab started. Indian developers (and not a few Russians) bought up land. Goans were priced out of the market. Activists feared that the ‘corporatist mafia’ would turn Goa into a concrete jungle. They would later call it “the rape of Goa.”
Author and Goa Bachao Abhiyan activist Venita Coehlo says that with the rise of drugs, prostitution, and other illegal activities, “A lot of resentment built up toward foreigners. The Goan is protesting the loss of his identity as he feels swamped by outsiders taking his land and his businesses.” A 2006 National Security Council Secretariat report on the investment of Russians and other foreigners in big tracts of lands prompted a state inquiry into why these lands were really being bought.
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Image: Vikas Khot
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HOUSE OF CARDS: Nicholas Papa, at his residence in Aldona, which may soon be confiscated | |
Many feel these crackdowns mask rampant corruption. At any rate, by 2006 the pressure on the government to save Goa — or line their own pockets, depending on who you believe — was at exploding point. It acted: Denotification of Regional Plan 2011 reverted a large number of residential zones to agricultural zones with retrospective affect. According to the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA), foreign landowners cannot buy agricultural land of any sort in India; violators can be penalised three times the value of their land and may have the property confiscated. Suddenly, many landowners became lawbreakers.
By the Book
The show cause notice Mick and Nick received lists three transgressions: Buying on a tourist visa; being non-residents; and buying agricultural land. Nick laughs bitterly and points to a two-foot-tall stack of documents he has saved. They have never lived in Goa on a tourist visa; they own resident permits; and they have the Sanad papers, showing that their land has been properly converted from agricultural to residential. (Sanad is a document required by Goa’s 1969 Land Revenue Code to change land). “Since 2006, I have felt that if you are white, you’re targetted based on the colour of your skin. They call us English bastards, and tell us to go home. We want to go home, but now we even can’t do that.”
For many who bought legally, getting the notices was traumatic. Nick and Mick tell us of one friend who just had a stroke, another who had a heart attack, a woman in Parra, near Calangute beach, who slit her wrists.
When asked why no action has been taken against Indian nationals in similar legal situations, former law minister Dayanand Narvekar objects: “Even the Goans will be sent notices. It is very unfortunate for these foreigners, but they should have taken the time to figure out the way to buy property legally in Goa.”
Single Page View
Or even if it is true some facts are not being disclosed or maybe the persons concerned were misguided...
First of all if they had complied with all the Laws at the time of purchasing the land then no way their Land could be taken by anyone...
if they had Valid Resident Permit
I am a follower of the magazine for long before it was launched in India.I think a lot needs to be done to improvise on getting the latest news to readers than bringing out old stories packaged in a new box.
