Team Herald

PANJIM: Town & Country Planning (TCP) Department on Friday issued a notification withdrawing various villages of St Cruz and St Andre constituencies, a major part of Bambolim and Kadamba Plateau from the Greater Panaji Planning and Development Authority (GPPDA). However, Taleigao village will still be part of GPPDA. 

The withdrawal notification has come almost three months after the announcement by the government that the villages will be dropped from GPPDA. 

As per the notification, village areas of Calapur, Bambolim, Cujira, Curca and Talaulim have been delineated from the Bambolim Planning Area whereas, on the other side from the Kadamba Planning Area, the villages of Chimbel, Bainguinim Ella, Carambolim, Goalin-Maula, Azossim and Gancim have been removed.

Following the board’s decision, GPPDA will now include Taleigao, the left-side stretch of land from Goa University to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium, and a 300-m-wide ribbon of land along the Kadamba plateau bypass road.

TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai had earlier said that all villages from St Cruz and St Andre constituencies included in the GPPDA would be dropped.

The gram sabhas of the respective panchayats had resolved to de-notify the villages from the planning area. St Cruz MLA Tony Fernandes (Congress) and St Andre MLA Francis Silveira (Congress) had resigned as members of the GPPDA, headed by Goa Forward Party leader Atanasio Monserrate, in protest when the PDA had been formed.

Villagers from planning areas of Bambolim and Kadamba plateau that were proposed to be included under the GPPDA had staged several protests in the capital and even held a five-day chain hunger strike at Azad Maidan against the inclusion in GPPDA.