Goa is the only State in the country whose Coastal Zone Management Plan 2011 has not yet been finalised. The date of the plan is 2011, the current year is 2022, that itself tells just how delayed the plan has been. Goa has lagged too far behind and its intermittent struggle with finalising the plan has still not ended. It will end when the Centre approves the plan, that too only if there is no legal challenge to it. The latter cannot be ruled out, as there is every possibility that the many citizens who worked long into the nights to prepare their respective village plans will not be pleased to see any deviation in the final maps from what they had presented to the government. Besides, there has already been much criticism to some of the details in the government plan. The battle is far from over and the State will possibly have a fresh one very soon with the 2019 plan.
As the State attempts to get the 2011 plan finalised – it is in the final stages – the National Green Tribunal has given the State just two months to complete and finalise the Coastal Zone Management Plan 2019 that will be based on the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification of 2019. With Goa having not yet started the process for this plan, meeting this deadline is out of question and the State will enter into another marathon race in getting the 2019 plan completed. Some of the coastal States have already started the process for the 2019 plan, even held public hearings. Goa has not and the National Green Tribunal has already said that non finalisation of the plan is a ‘gross violation’ of the Supreme Court judgement. How does Goa respond to this?
There is another aspect involved here, which is that Goa’s tardiness in finalising the Coastal Zone Management Plan 2011 could well make it redundant as the 2019 plan has to be finalised in two months. That Goa may not achieve this deadline is a different matter, but it has to do it in a hurry, so what happens to the plan of 2011 over which so much time and money have been spent in completing? It cannot be allowed to be unnecessary. This tardiness indicates just how unconcerned the State administration is in undertaking the tasks mandated by the Centre and which have long term repercussions on the State.
Additionally, the coastal States have been directed by the National Green Tribunal to prepare the Shoreline Management Plan for areas that are prone to erosion and that have been identified in the CZMPs. This is of extreme importance to Goa, as studies have predicted that many of the coastal areas in the State will be eroded and that large tracts of land could go under water due to climate change effects. Time, therefore, is of the essence for Goa to prepare such shoreline management plans as these will not only identify the areas prone to erosion, but also help draft mitigation measures to reverse the erosion. These can be prepared only after the Coastal Management Plan is finalised, which makes it a sort of vicious circle with nothing getting done.
Goa just cannot delay these plans. The fact that it will be the last State to complete the 2011 Coastal Zone Management Plan, suggests that it will possibly be among the last with the 2019 plan. The administration has to pull up its socks and begin the preparation of the new plan. There is no gain in keeping them pending as several development projects in the coastal areas can be approved only after the CZMP is finalised. Some urgency has to be shown in getting the plans prepared without errors and then approved.
