Vasco fishermen cry foul over the gross contempt of the NGT directions by MPT for allegedly undertaking dredging work VASCO: In an interesting development, fishermen group from Khariwado and Baina have filed a joint Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the High Court of Bombay at Goa, seeking stay on the maintenance and dredging undertaken by the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT). According to information, the PIL was filed by President of Old Cross Fishing Canoe Owners Co-operative Society Ltd (OCFCOCSL) Custodio D’Souza and the members of Baina Ramponkar and Fishing Canoe Owners' Society before High court on September 13, 2017. Later while admitting the PIL, HC passed an order directing Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) to file a short affidavit by Monday (September 18) and the matter will now be heard on Wednesday (September 20). Speaking to this correspondent, General Secretary of Goenchea Ramponkarancho Ekvott Olencio Simoes informed that on July 28 2017, National Green Tribunal(NGT)Pune bench (in course of hearing the appeal filed by Old Cross Canoe Owners Society) had directed MPT to carry out proposed annual maintenance dredging work in 2017 only, under supervision of GCZMA sub-committee consisting of Antonio Mascarenhas and three other experts. However, in gross contempt of the NGT directions, MPT has allegedly undertaking dredging work in the navigation channel and turning circles without informing the sub-committee, constituted by GCZMA to ensure that MPT does not exceeds depth of 14.5 meters. We fishermen had apprehension that MPT would take up capital dredging illegally in guise of maintenance dredging. However, since NGT was involved in the matter, we thought that MPT might not take such risk. Now it was duty of MPT and GCZMA to inform the sub-committee about the dredging operations, Simoes said He said that the fishermen community from Khariwado and Baina were shocked to note that MPT failed to inform the GCZMA sub-committee about the dredging operations. It was shocking to read a Herald article, published on September 13, 2017, where it was confirmed by Mascarenhas that he being the member of sub-committee has no information about the dredging operations even after four days of operations undertaken by the port authorities. Also to reconfirm even we personally called Mascarenhas and got to know that the information in the article was indeed correct. Since this amounts to contempt of NGT order, we immediately filed a PIL before the High Court seeking stay on dredging operations by MPT and now the hearing over our PIL seeking stay on dredging would be held on Wednesday, he added.