Team Herald
PANJIM: Chief Minister Pramod Sawant met Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav in New Delhi on Wednesday.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
Sawant briefed Shah on various State initiatives and sought his guidance. He also reiterated Goa’s demand for a higher share in the devolution of taxes during his meeting with the Finance Minister. The State government has requested an increase in tax devolution from 41 per cent to 50 per cent.
The Chief Minister also raised the issue of villages proposed to be dropped from the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) notification during his meeting with Yadav. The State government has already submitted a proposal to the Expert Committee on Western Ghats to drop 21 villages from the draft ESA notification. In August 2024, the MoEF&CC had issued a draft notification proposing to include 108 Goan villages in the ESA list.
Additionally, Sawant requested the Union Minister for the early finalisation of the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 2019 for Goa. The State government, after missing deadlines in October 2023 and May 2024, has set January 2025 as the new target date for its completion.
