21 Feb 2021  |   05:48am IST

FINE TUNING THE URBAN SPRAWL

FINE TUNING THE  URBAN SPRAWL

Alexandre Moniz Barbosa

Two months after rural Goa voted in an election for a largely inconsequnetial district body – the zilla panchayat – that has limited powers and even more restricted finances, a major part of urban Goa is getting into election mode as polls for 11 municipal councils and the Corporation of the City of Panaji are set to take place next month. In the din of the politics that surround the municipal elections – despite the fact that they will not be fought on party lines – what will be overlooked are the larger issues, which are the conditions of the towns and the State capital. There will be promises galore in the campaign, most of which will be swept to the bottom of the list once the new councils are in place, and the towns will return to the same pace and style of functioning as earlier. Had the State hoped to plan better for the urban areas, the intevening period between the end of the term of the councils and the postponed elections due to the pandemic could have been utilised to give the nw councils a better footing to work from once they are in place.

There has been little focus on how urban areas have been declared in the State. Goa today has two districts, 12 talukas, 13 municipal councils and 1 city corporation. There is at least one municipal council for each taluka, while some have more than one and the newest taluka of Dharbandora has none. Much as the Goan identity is strongly linked to the villages, these rural areas have been undergoing a sea change over the years, and the process has speeded up in the recent past. If one were to take a look at satellite imagery of Goa, it would appear that a large part of the State, especially the bustling coastal areas, have a very urban look to them. But when one looks at the map, this is not so represented by municipal councils and village panchayats. Taluka headqurters have been given municipal status, while villages that are urban sprawls still hold on to the panchayats. 

Attempts to bestow municipal status to villages have drawn opposition primarily because the residents of the panchayats do not desire to have their rural spaces converted into concrete urban jungles. Besides, such moves are viewed as attempts to curtail panchayat powers; increase local taxes; convert fields into plots for residential complexes and buildings and bring the village under the Town and Country Planning Act, rather than the Regional Plan. The last is a major fear of the villagers, yet there are examples of villages that have turned into unplanned urban jungles because of the panchayat status that they retain, as the planning and development authorities are not able to bring in the planned development. There is no reasonable justification for an area like Porvorim or Taleigao or many coastal villages remaining a panchayat and hence rural, while other areas like Valpoi or Cuncolim that have much more rural characteristics are elevated to municipal councils and hence urban areas.

A year ago, a circular notifying 56 villages across the State as urban areas had kicked up a controversy. Surprised villagers, apprehensive that their rural habitats would transform from oasis of peace to chacophonic towns, voted as one in gram sabhas objecting to the urban status.The village bodies, in a rare show of unity, demanded that this the circular be rescinded. The clarification by the Revenue Department that the urban status was only for census purposes and would not affect the villages in matters of planning didn’t assuage tempers. For census purposes, a village is denoted as an urban agglomeration if it meets three criteria – at least 5,000 inhabitants, density of 400 people per sq km or more, and at least 75 per cent of male working population engaged in non-farm activities. Based on this, there are therefore 56 villages in Goa that qualify to be urban agglomerations. 

While flaws could be picked about this criteria and it is also outdated, even a quick drive through many villages in Goa will confirm that rural areas indeed have all the characteristics of an urban sprawl rather than a rural one. And it is exactly this that needs to be tackled before the sprawl deteriorates further. The villages of Goa need planning at a different level. Besides taluka headquartes, the vilages that are adjacent to existing towns need to be upgraded so that there is continuity in planning. Therefore, the expansion of the jurisdictions of the existing towns have to be seriously considered to ensure contiguity in planning. A town needs a different planning approach that will scientifically take into consideration the stress that a certain area can absorb in terms of population rise and how to provide infrastructure and services to the increase population. As population of an area increases it simultaneously requires the road network, power and water supply systems to increase to meet the new needs. 

This is not a submission to urbanise Goa, but a suggestion to bring conformity in the planning process. There are Planning Development Authorities that bring non-urban areas within their jurisdiction. The fact that there is a need for these villages to have such planning authorities is an indication that the government is aware that the areas over time have acquired urban characteristics and so need a different planning process. Why not, therefore, upgrade a few select village panchayats to municipal towns, with an inbuilt mechanism that will not allow the village to change its character totally? At the current point of time, when Goa is struggling to hold on to its identity and to its green fields and forests, this suggestion may jar quite a bit, but it is far more advisable to have proper planning in the villages than to have a haphazard development that cannot be rectified at a later date. Development does not mean just creating infrastructure, but doing so where it is needed and in a scientific, planned manner. it would fit in with the idea of Swampurna Goa.

Alexandre Moniz Barbosa is Editor, Herald. He tweets at @monizbarbosa


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