Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral said the State has decided to close the CZMP by October 5, and that the plan would be made final without any more changes. That, however, may be easier said than done, as across the State’s coastal areas there are going to be thousands of persons who are going to be now rushing to create the CZMPs for their villages, and are not going to take it kindly to this sudden decision – a bombshell many will say – from the government. Just nine villages have submitted their plans to the government, and October 5 is less than three weeks away.
The announcement by the Environment Minister coincided with the the beach shack operators approaching the High Court of Bombay at Goa challenging the order of the NGT barring beach shacks in the absence of the CZMP.
There may be protests now, but the people have to remember that they did bring this upon themselves. When in July, the people had boycotted the consultations, Herald in these columns had said that shunning the meetings wouldn’t serve any purpose. The questions that Herald had asked at that time were: If after having been given an opportunity to present their case the people boycott the session that has been called, how will they then be able to critique the final plan which will be drafted and presented as a fait accompli? The people objected to the CZMP as drafted and presented by the agency that was tasked with drawing it up. What purpose is served in rejecting the consultation process? These are now made relevant by the latest development.
An entire month was lost by this boycott of the consultations. The plan had been rejected by the government and been sent back to the agency that had drafted it. The public consultations were to allow the people to have their say, make their suggestions so that these could be incorporated in the plan. The primary reasons why the CZMP was rejected by the governemnt were that there were a large number of discrepancies in the plan and because the people had not been given a hearing. Instead of grabbing the opportunity to have their say, the people stayed away.
The boycott of the consultations has ensured that the people will now not get a hearing, or if they do, then the time will be limited. October 5 is not too far, time is short and the process is long. There is a lot of work to be done in a very brief period. The rush job that will be entered into now should, however, not lead to any errors on the plan. The draft plan that had been presented to the people was rejected for its many errors, so the State can’t afford to have any other or more mistakes now. The situation has been brought about by the refusal to participate in the consultations.
It is now clear that no purpose was served by the boycott. Ironically, the people have given the government the opportunity to tell the MoEF&CC, as well as the NGT, that public consultations were scheduled, but the people stayed away. It’s a situation that when they stayed away they had not foreseen, but was always a possibility. The consultations were extremely important s the plan will decide the future of the coastal areas of the State. It has now been left to chance, as the period that the people have is too short to make a perfect plan.
