A four year hope which gave the people of Goa a sense of participation like never before, as stakeholders of the Regional Plan, is set to be quashed in a final flurry of government bullying. Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza, is the unfortunate man who will bell this misfortune around the necks of Goans who overcame all suspicion to vote this government to power.
In a final stroke which will severe people from the government, the Regional Plan, which stood suspended because the government recognised there were irregularities or missing links that needed to be rectified, will now be placed at the mercy of MLAs.
The Goa Bachao Abhiyan has very rightly hit the absolute crux of what the government is trying to do. It points out that “the RP 2021 already has an increase in settlement over the old Plan between 10% and 30% in different villages. This increase in land settlement at current FAR levels technically allows a whopping increase in the population by half the current census, a 50% increase at least if not more. With typical Goan birthrate, this does not make sense. We can be sure that more areas will be changed as MLA’s ‘view the Plan’, and it will not be in the interest of Goan people if the current spate of illegalities are an indicator. What could therefore happen is a further increase in settlement areas which will take away more of our land.
The BJP government had three full years to send the plan to the people and take inputs from villagers. This promise was made by none other than the then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who had gone to the extent of saying that people in villages would vote on the changes they suggested in the plan and these changes would be superimposed in the suspended plan of the village. The Parsekar government’s move nullifies that promise permanently.
The GBA points out that ad-hoc insertions of Eco Tourism Zones and Micro Industrial Estates, duplicate plans and arbitrary roads were a reason for much of the people’s anger before this election. These concerns have never been addressed in the past and will now certainly not be addressed if the government pursues the path of bulldozing people’s sentiments while pretending to hear the people’s voice through their MLAs.
Let this government know that it is signing its political death warrant by opening the Regional Plan by bypassing people. With illegalities sprouting in each village, the anger, hurt and betrayal of the people of Goa will culminate in a people’s uprising against this government.
Herald supports the call of GBA to people asking them to bring documented illegalities to its notice with photographs and papers so that these can be filed before the authorities.
What needs to be done is a series of awareness programmes at the taluka, block and panchayat level. The broad contours of this grand betrayal must be explained to people and then a course of action outlined. Most importantly the social and online media needs to be used to upload village maps with specific illegalities. Herald can then play a part in publishing village wise issues so that there is constant information bombardment to counter the grand push by MLAs to kick-start a plan which is flawed, since it leaves room for illegalities. And with MLAs getting a free run and not the people, the Regional Plan is not safe.
If Laxmikant Parsekar has any concern for his and his party’s political future he should hold his decision to notify the plan by September 30 and go back to the people, the very people his party came to with folded hands to vote for them, so that they could give them a just Regional Plan.
The Betrayal Janata Party has its task really cut out.
