Proposed land survey meant to grab properties of Goans: Ferreira

MAPUSA: Advocate Carlos Alvares Ferreira has said that a recent draft notification in which the state government proposes to survey all land in the state is a ploy by the BJP government to permit land grabbing of properties and houses belonging to Goans.

Ferreira stated that the Goa government had notified new drag rules on October 9, 2025 in the official gazette, titled “The Goa Geospatial Knowledge Based Land Survey of Urban Habitation Rules, 2025”. According to him, the rules empower the government to direct the land survey department to conduct surveys and upload the data as digital records.

“I have no objection to this, but these rules are being brought in through the backdoor and are meant to usurp people’s land and properties and even people’s houses and fields,” he said.

The MLA highlighted that Rule 3 authorises the director of the land survey department to issue notices informing people that surveys will be conducted. House owners, mortgagees, residents abroad and other persons with interests in the land would be required to provide information to survey officers to ensure that their lands are measured and rights recorded correctly.

Ferreira expressed concern that the data would be uploaded to the GIS portal of the Madhya Pradesh State Electronic Development Corporation. “What happened to Goa Electronic Limited? Is our Goa government incompetent? Don’t we have our own Goan government website and ready database? Why give it to Madhya Pradesh and that too a corporation? They will have all our data, they can manipulate it, they can share and even sell it. Nowadays we are getting spam calls as our data has been sold, it’s the same way,” he said.

He further said that inquiry officers would send lists of unoccupied vacant plots and unclaimed land parcels to the collector for action under the Goa Escheats Forfeiture and Bona Vacantia Act, 2024. Ferreira said he had raised the issue in the Assembly, calling it a “land grabbing law” and warning that it posed a danger to Goans.

In the public notice form ‘I’, a clause states that surveys exclude lands ordinarily used for agriculture.

“If you’re surveying all lands then why exclude agricultural land, including those tenanted? Is it because it cannot be sold and has no value? This is because the government has set its sights on free-hold land, houses and landed property. I urge Goans to be alert, prove your ownership with documents. If there are no documents then show that you’ll are residing there. One day an order will come to vacate the house and you’ll be on the roads. How will the poor people prove their ownership with documents? They will be finished and then big builders will come and they will want to develop the land,” he said.