Team Herald
PANJIM: Two NGOs have jointly challenged the State government’s decision to allow land conversions cum zonal changes on case by case basis before the High Court of Bombay at Goa.
In their joint petition, the Goa Foundation (GF) and Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) have stated that allowing land conversions cum zonal changes on case by case basis in the Regional Plan 2021 (RP21), would defeats the sole purpose of planned development guaranteed to under Constitution of India.
The public interest litigation (PIL) filed on November 2 challenges the amendment to Section 16b to the Town and Country Planning Act.
“The GBA and Goa Foundation have filed a Public Interest litigation in the High Court against 1section 16b, seeking relief in public interest.
Calling the amendment to Section 16b as retrograde, GBA convenor Sabina Martins, in a press statement issued on Sunday, said that the amendment selectively “allows a few land owners to override the rest of the stakeholders (the entire population of Goa ), who are not land owners in the matter of land use and planning.”
She said that GBA demands that the government stop the land conversion at once. Alerting the public that the legal basis of the amendment is weak, Martins advises potential applicants against using Section 16b for land use change to avoid risk.
“It is a matter of concern that the government, through its department of Planning, continuously seeks to undermine the Constitution: the latest and most damaging being the Amendment (Section) 16b to the TCP Act,” Martins said.
She alleged that rampant piecemeal conversions affected 2241 zone changes between 1988 and 2005, changing agricultural, orchard and forest lands and irrevocably damaging Goa.
“The then Secretary to the TCP Department and the Chief Secretary of Goa made clear notes deriding such practices as ‘ad-hoc’ and ‘not well founded in law’. As forthright and conscious officers, they intervened, with the Chief Secretary writing to the Governor regarding ceasing such practice in March 2005. It was stopped immediately thereafter,” she noted.
“Despite this, an Ordinance under the then TCP Minister Atanasio Babush Monserrate attempted to revive this misguided principle, even as the Regional Plan 2011 was in the process of being completed. It lapsed due to massive public pressure and was not revived till now,” she added.
The GBA exhorts the people of Goa to understand, stand up and demand their rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, especially in this case, their right to participative planning.
