Thanks Tony. Very enlightening. Roland
> On Dec 3, 2020, at 9:49 AM, Tony de Sa <tonyde...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Roland Francis: " Tony, have there been attempts by the Govt to grab > communidade land let?s say in your own Moira experience." > > Roland not any major attempts during my tenures, but way back, the > government acquired a large tract of land for the "20 Point Programme". The > Committee was literally bulldozed into granting the land to the government. > Today, there is a glorified slum there. The plots are supposed to be of 100 > Sq. m dimensions and they are supposed to be one room tenements, but there > are inadequate roads within the colony and many of the dwellers have built > storied buildings there. The local name for the place is "Fukot Nagar" - > FreeTown. This is an eye sore and in the view of some villagers a curse to > the village. Every now and then the Panchayat lays down tarred roads in > comunidade lands without any by your leave from the Comunidade. > > For your information, if I am not mistaken, Assagao paid around Rs. 5000 > two years back as Jono. This I came to know through casual talk with one of > the committee members. Assagao today, is not what it was years ago during > your time Roland. It has completely transformed itself along with a few > other villages like Sangolda, or Porvorim. There are a great many > restaurants there, some of them gourmet restaurants. It has a lot of > 'birthing centres' where women can have deliveries in water. There are all > sorts of Yoga centres and clinics. The roads, even the interior ones are > hot mixed. It has a school, a higher Secondary School, an Arts, Science and > Commerce college which offers studies to the post graduate level. It also > has an engineering college set up by the Pilar Fathers on land donated by > the Assagao Comunidade. So today, you would probably get a couple of > bottles of imported whiskey for the Jono that you receive if your name is > still registered with the Comunidade. For those who do not know, every > Joneiro has to 'renew' his registration in the month of May every year to > be eligible to receive the Jono. Something akin to the journey to Bethlehem > made by the Holy Family. > > As for the "mezzache poixe" Every committee member is entitled to a sitting > fee for managing committee meetings. But I haven't claimed any for the past > six years and neither have the other committee members. In fact we incur > out of pocket expenses in the form of phone calls, transport to Mapusa/ > Panjim, printing, a lot of which we do on our own machines. The comunidade > has a desktop and a printer, but it is open only on Fridays because the > Escirvao (Clerk deputed by the Administrator) serves 7 comunidades and > comes to Moira only on Friday. So if there is some urgent communication to > be done, we do it from our home machines. > > Hope this gives some insight into the Comunidades. > > Tony de Sa