Team Herald
MAGAO: At an extraordinary gram sabha held at Varca on Wednesday the villagers demanded that the authorities explain to them draft coastal zone management plan prepared for their village and prepare a new one incorporating their suggestions and recommendations and thereby rejected the draft sent to them.
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Sarpanch Crosly Charlton Lourenco presented the draft CZMP to the villagers and they unanimously rejected it with the first demand being that the Port limit shown in the plan be dropped forthwith and also demanded that all the existing structures within the coastal regulation zone should be shown in the map.
The villagers also demanded that the hazard line marked in the plan be removed and further demanded that the fish ward boundary should be along the coastline and insisted that it cannot be shown beyond 500 mts of the coastline.
The villagers also objected to the demarcation of buffer zone for mangroves and demanded that this buffer zone be deleted. They argued that keeping the buffer zone for mangroves would result in mangroves growing in the fields.
The villagers demanded that the sand dunes be shown properly as they exist today and so also the mangroves and all other structures which exist in the area covered by the plan.
They also demanded that public hearing on the coastal zone management plan be held at the panchayat level after the authorities explain the whole plan to the villagers and then prepare a fresh plan incorporating all the suggestions made by the villagers.
