Team Herald
PANJIM: In a major step towards retaining state’s greenery and heritage and to settle the increasing concern about large scale conversion of agriculture and khazan lands into settlement, the Manohar Parrikar-led coalition government has mooted the concept of incentivizing the efforts to retain the old houses and green patches in the State.
Parrikar on Wednesday afternoon chaired the first meeting on the Regional Plan 2021, which was attended by Minister for Town and Country Planning (TCP) Vijay Sardessai and other officials of the department and the State Level Steering Committee (SLC) on RP.
“There are concerns of the State government and the people to preserve Goa for eternity. The concerns are basically because there are fears in the mind of activists that the regional plan will take away greenery and heritage. There is fear that the maximum area is converted into settlement purpose,” Sardessai told media persons soon after the meeting.
He said that the basic fear is that large chunks of agricultural and khazan lands are converted into settlements. “Now I am also the agriculture minister and I have to protect agriculture and at the same time we have to plan our towns and villages in such a way that Goa looks different. Goa has planned development for which idea has been mooted today,” minister said.
Sardessai said that government is trying to create concept in which if you have old house and if you retain that house there will be incentives for it. If you have greenery and if you have retained it you will get incentives.
“Those incentives you can sell to the builder. And the builder will be able to use these incentives in designated areas where vertical growth would be allowed. The areas which are going to be designated for development are not yet decided. Also the quantum of credit is also yet to be decided,” Minister said. Sardessai said that the Chief Town Planner has been asked to prepare a concept paper on these lines which would submit to government in a weeks’ time. “By mid-May there will be more clarity on the issue,” he said. “This is a progressive idea which is not there in the entire country. We want to set a standard in terms of preservation and environment,” the minister said adding “many a times people try to convert their agriculture land because they feel that they will not get anything, but now we are incentivizing them to retain its status and not to convert land therefore preserve Goa. We want to preserve it for posterity.”
Sardessai said the concept is on par with “transfer of developmental rights (TDR) which is prevalent in our neighbouring state.” He said that the concept would be very much part and parcel of RP21.
