FRIDAY, MAY 03, 2024
Team Herald
MARGAO: Goa's wait to get the final and rectified Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) is nearing an end, with the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) finally agreeing to correct the recently notified CZMP 2011 maps that it had developed for the State.
It may be recalled that in late February, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) instructed the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) to address discrepancies in the CZMP 2011 within three months. These discrepancies arose after the maps were shared on a 1:4,000 scale and were attributed to mismatches with state survey plans.
The GCZMA had identified issues with the maps provided by NCSCM and requested that the Union Ministry of Environment (MoEF), issues the recommendations. NGT suggested that the CZMP maps would be rectified once the discrepancies were resolved by the NCSCM, with action to be taken based on MoEF's recommendation.
The CZMP, originally drafted on a 1:25,000 scale, was criticised for lack of clarity, leading to the shift to a more detailed 1:4,000 scale as requested by the State government.
GCZMA Director Jhonson Fernandes explained that a team from Goa headed by the environment minister and also comprising officials from the Land Survey department had recently travelled to Chennai to meet the NCSCM officials, where the Goa team managed to prevail upon NCSCM that the corrections had to be made urgently.
This came against the backdrop of this issue being taken up by the Environment Department since October 2023, which was followed by a meeting held in New Delhi between the State government and MoEF, which was then followed by a series of meetings and discussions between the State government and Chennai-based NCSCM.
Here it was communicated that, upon verification of the maps by the Goa government, certain discrepancies in the maps prepared by the NCSCM had come to light.
Amongst the discrepancies that GCZMA asked to be corrected revolved around the high tide line (HTL), low tide line (LTL), especially in ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs) and coastal regulation zones (CRZs) in the approved CZMP.
Fernandes also gave the example of the bundhs which were not shown and how this had distorted the maps.
While the Directorate of Settlement and Land Records (DSLR), which had pointed out overlapping of the boundaries of villages, etc, marked all the corrections that were needed to be made on the maps, this data was presented to NCSCM in Chennai.
Fernandes said that after NCSCM agreed to make the corrections but had asked for time as it would be a lengthy exercise. He added that NCSCM would complete all the corrections by the end of May and that the revised maps would be re-uploaded after that.
Fernandes also gave a detailed account of what had happened with the CZMP 2011 since the original notification and an amendment thereafter, and he felt that once NCSCM completes the task, this issue should be settled.
According to government sources, the finalisation of the CZMP will help the GCZMA clear the backlog of cases, ensure faster resolution of new cases, and offer clarity to those seeking CRZ-related permissions.
It may be recalled that when the Environment Department first informed NCSCM about the errors, NCSCM stated that the LTL/HTL, ESA, and CRZ had already been approved by the central ministry as part of the CZMP of Goa and no changes could be made without the approval of the ministry.
