Panel visits Verna & Keri SEZ sites

On 19 December 2009, the panel of experts who have come down to Goa for the PEOPLES' AUDIT OF SEZs (on Sunday, 20 Dec 2009, Caritas Hall, Panaji, Goa) visited the SEZ sites of Raheja at Verna and later Meditabs at Keri. They included Shekhar Singh, Adv Prashant Bhushan, Adm Ramdas, Kalpana Sharma and K B Saxena. Also present were Preeti Sampat, Sumanya Velamur, Nikhil Dey, Prasad Bhagwe, Mike and Mukta Shrivastava.

They were joined by Charles Fernandes, Franky Monteiro, Carmen Miranda, Peter Gama and other villagers at Verna. At Keri they were received by Rohidas Satarkar, Ramkrishna Jhalmi, Swati Kerkar, Dilesh Hazare, Dr Videsh Jhalmi and other villagers. Pravin Sabnis, Fr Simon Fernandes, Solano D'Souza and filmmaker Stalin K Padma was also present for the field visit

Earlier they visited and expressed their solidarity with persons from mining affected villages who were sitting on a day long fast at Azad Maidan. They also visited the Verna site where toxic industrial waste is being irresponsibly burnt.