Goa’s top performing MLA Reginaldo adds one more feather to his cap, brings over 95 percent farmland in Curtorim under cultivation

PANAJI: After emerging as Goa’s top-performing MLA, as per the ADR report, Curtorim’s Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco has added one more shinning feather to his cap.

According to official records about 15 years ago, the total farmland under cultivation in Lourenco’s constituency (when he was first elected MLA) was less than 35 percent and fast dwindling. Today it’s more than 95 percent, earning Curtorim the moniker of “food granary of Salcete” or rather of the entire state.

Were it not for Lourenco who provided local farmers with modernized technology such as harvesting and sowing machines, tractors and other equipment, they would have long abandoned their fields.

Lourenco went door to door, convincing the hesitant farmers and even youth to take up farming. It was an uphill task with several hurdles on the way. But Lourenco stuck to his conviction and today more than 95 percent of cultivable land in the area is under the plow, a commendable achievement for the rest of Goa to emulate.

More about Curtorim

Curtorim, in South Goa, is a verdant agrarian village, known as the ‘granary of Salcete’, and is said to have got its name from either kuddtari or kuddtoddi since the agricultural village had kudds (rooms) built on the river bank (toddir) to store kharif and rabi crops.

Besides, its vast agricultural fields, hills and seven lakes, Curtorim is unique for being a hilly area as well as a valley.

Over the years, Lourenco encouraged his people to bring more and more land under cultivation and by next year 2022, farmers in Curtorim will boast of 100 percent cultivation of farming land in the constituency.

Top performing MLA

Three-time Congress legislator Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenço from Curtorim constituency in South Goa, emerged as the top-performing legislator in the Goa Legislative Assembly since the beginning of the current term of the Assembly until March this year, with a 100 percent attendance record, besides also having asked the most questions in the house, an analysis of the performance of Goa’s 40 legislators across the last four and a half years by the NGO Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), revealed. The ADR sourced their data from the Office of the Speaker of the Goa Assembly, by filing RTI applications on various topics and subjects.