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| Land grab: Goa's latest booming business |
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Last December, Nicholas Papa and Michael Cooper got an early Christmas present: A show cause notice from India's 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 (approx £39,000 GBP) and spent another Rs 18 lakh (approx £23,000) renovating it, intending to retire there on Coopers 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 wont let us sell our house, wont 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. The story of Westerners choosing Goa as a place to settle down began when Western hippies first discovered Goas 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. 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. 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 Goas 1969 Land Revenue Code to change land). "Since 2006, I have felt that if you are white, you are targeted 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, 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." Last update: 12-11-2009 22:47
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