TMC leader Luizinho Faleiro
GT Team
In a major pre-poll promise, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) combine on Tuesday, promised subsidised housing to 50,000 homeless native families and an expeditious process for clear land title to long-staying tenants, defined under the twin legislations, namely 'The Goa Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964' and 'The Goa Daman & Diu Mundkars (Protection from eviction) Act, 1975'.
According to TMC national vice president Luizinho Faleiro, if the party comes to power, it will begin implementation of the two promises within 250 days, adding that the total budgetary implication of the housing initiative would amount to only 0.6 per cent of the state's expenditure.
"Today, in the history of the state of Goa we are moving a very very important step. This step will affect the lives of 60 per cent of the population of Goa. It will affect 2.1 lakh families in Goa," Faleiro told the joint press conference along with leaders of the MGP.
Both parties announced a pre-poll alliance last month for the upcoming state assembly polls.
"Griha laxmi card represents eight per cent of the budget, Yuva Shakti card represents four per cent of our budget and subsidised houses represent 0.6 per cent of our budget. In other words, if anyone wants to know, the various schemes which TMC will bring hardly affects 13.2 per cent of the budget," Faleiro said, while explaining the financial implications of the party's schemes, which the political outfit's critics have described as populist and unreasonable.
"The housing initiative will impact the lives of 60 per cent of the population of Goa. It will affect 2.1 lakh families in Goa. It is a landmark housing rights scheme that aims at securing the housing rights of Goenkars which is a constitutional duty of any government and is interpreted as a fundamental right under Article 21 (Right To Life) of the Constitution," Faleiro told reporters at a press conference in Panaji.
Faleiro also said that the TMC will operationalise pro-people legislations like The Goa Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964 and The Goa Daman & Diu Mundkars (Protection from eviction) Act, 1975 on the ground and take the state's first Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar's ambitions further.