WEDNESDAY, MAY 08, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: The conversion of “paddy fields” and “natural cover” into “settlement” extended across three talukas continues with a latest bulk of notifications on June 5.
On these, the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department, post government approval, notified conversion of over 16,000 square metres of land from paddy fields and natural cover into settlement across Bardez, Ponda and Salcete talukas.
This was against a proposal to convert 2,675 square metres.
The department had received four applications for conversion of total 21,784 square metres of land in the Regional Plan 2021. However, following the government approval, the TCP department allowed corrections-cum-alterations by way of conversion of 16,039 square metres of land.
In a notification issued on June 5, the Chief Town Planner (CTP) said that following State government approval for alteration and modification in the RP 2021, it has allowed conversion of land admeasuring an area of 1,318 square metres, in Survey No. 10, sub-division No. 3-A (Part), of Deussua village in Salcete, earmarked as paddy field in RP now corrected as settlement zone.
The actual proposal was for conversion of 2,675 sq mtrs of land.
The same day, a plot of land admeasuring 10,100 square metres, in Survey No. 97, sub-division No. 1 (part), of Assagao village in Bardez converted from natural cover zone into settlement zone. Here too, the proposal was for converting 11,600 sq mtrs of land.
Last week, a whopping 50,000 sq mtrs of land was converted from natural cover to settlement in Assagao village.
Further, in Oxel village, in Bardez, Survey No. 64, sub-division No 1 (part), 2,787 sq metres of land was notified as corrected from paddy field with irrigation command area to settlement zone. The applicant had sought conversion of 5,675 sq mtrs of paddy field.
An area of 1,834 sq mtrs in Survey No. 41, sub-division No. 4-A and 5-A, in Queula village in Ponda, earmarked as paddy field in RP-2021 is corrected- cum-converted into settlement.
These applications were received in March and April respectively.
The government has considered the reports and it is of the opinion that alteration/modification is necessary to be carried out to the RP-2021 for the purpose of rectifying inadvertent error that has occurred in the plan and it has directed the CTP (Planning) to carry out alteration/modification to the plan for the purpose of correcting/rectifying the zone of the said plots earmarked as a natural cover zone as per plan, to settlement zone by issuing notification under sub-section (2) of Section 17 of the said Act.
Three activists Pravinsingh Shedgaonkar of Betim, Mayur Shetgaonkar of Morjim and Swapnesh Sherlekar of Bicholim have filed an amended PIL writ petition before the High Court of Bombay at Goa praying to strike down Section 17 and Sub-Section 2 of Goa TCP Act, 1974.
