THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2024
On November 25, Minister for Town and Country Planning (TCP) Vishwajit Rane announced that the department has kick-started the process to rework the ODPs for Panjim, Taleigao, Bambolim and Mapusa, and went on to say that plans will be prepared based on the inputs of town planners and consultants. The department has already taken onboard some consultants, including those outside Goa, for preparing the plan.
The NGOs, activists and experts from the field of planning seems to be unhappy with the move to get consultants, while sidelining the local bodies and people. At the same time, they have advocated the need to update the Regional Plan 2021, before going ahead with
new ODPs.
Former Chief Planner, Town and Country Planning Organisation, Government of India Edgar Ribeiro said that the consultants should not be involved in preparing ODP and Regional Plan because they are project driven. There is a need to update the Regional Plan, at least till 2031 as we are already heading into 2023 and 2021 plan has no relevance.
He believes that be it RP or ODP, the TCP officials should do the plan because they are competent and he has seen them at the time of drafting RP 2021 as they were part of it. Instead of a top-down approach, he has called for taking stakeholders and gram panchayats into confidence. He suggested the incorporation of local area plans which will emerge from the wards of the village panchayats and the municipalities.
The recently notified Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 2011 prepared by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Chennai an agency approved by the Centre is a fresh example of how someone with no ground knowledge about Goa can ruin the planning process. The plan had stirred major controversy after villagers and activists pointed out how certain villages and municipal areas, houses, fishing zones, religious and heritage structures, bundhs, sand dunes, mangroves were missing from the maps. The people’s mass protest had forced the government to redirect the agency to rework on the plan that took nearly seven years to complete and get the plan notified.
Director of Goa Foundation Claude Alvares said that roping in consultants is not something new but this is for the first time that the ODPs are being handed over to outside consultants. “What can they offer which local expertise cannot provide? Why do you have engineering and architecture colleges in Goa, if you think they cannot provide the pool for planning exercises in the State?” he questioned.
Alvares felt that this is a move to keep the public away from the planning process. “It is because the expertise of the local people is disrespected or unwanted or considered undesirable that outside consultants are imported. Despite constitution amendments brought in since 1992, the government still resists handing over planning to village bodies,” he said.
The activist pointed out how these planning and development areas (PDAs) entrusted with the task of preparing ODPs in coordination with consultants- are headed by politicians and not experts from the planning areas. “According to me, all ODPs after 2011need to be scrapped because they are the result of constant interference. Nothing is transparent,” he said.
The activists are of clear opinion that unless there is Participatory processes involving local governing bodies, biodiversity committees and citizens, the ODPs are not going to be practical and acceptable. “These so-called consultants are going to sit in air-conditioned chambers and draft plans based on Google images or maps. We have seen that in the case of CZMP. These are not going to be practical plans. Only people know the ground reality. Local body participation is a must in the planning process. You cannot keep them aside,” Joao Philip Pereira, a member of Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) said.
GBA, that had spearheaded the agitation against Regional Plan 2021, is clear that unless the Regional Plan is upgraded with a clear planning vision for next ten or 20 years, ODPs will have no relevance. “First of all, ODPs are part of the Regional Plan. So, how can you prepare for ODPs without any clear vision for years ahead? Is it right to prepare ODPs when we don’t have Regional Plan? Or you declare that Regional Plan 2021 is extended. But will that have any relevance considering vast changes over the years,” GBA convener Sabina Martins said.
While questioning the need to get in some international standard consultant, Martins said that the State has got so many professional institutes and pool of experts, who can be roped in. “By appointing consultants, what is the government trying to say, that these institutes or experts are incapable? They don’t have competency?” she asked.
“When you make a plan through a participatory process, the pool of expertise will automatically get involved and share their inputs. The plan has to be ‘Of the People, By the People and For the People’. There cannot be compromise on this front,” Martins said.
