They do deserve to be commended for undertaking the task and seeing it to its completion. At the end of the deadline to submit the village-level plans, 91 panchayats and municipalities of the 125 who should have done the exercise had delivered. This means that 34 rural and urban bodies have not met the deadline and so have failed to have their specific plan, with their valuable and local inputs, sent to the government.
For these 34, time has run out. Given that the plan drafted by National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) had contained several anomalies, and so had been rejected by the government and returned for correction, and that various gram sabhas had also objected to the village plans, these panchayat bodies and the municipal councils that missed the deadline, should have planned in advance to meet the date to provide inputs for the plan.
Was it that the 32 villages and two towns that did not submit were not prepared technically for such an exercise, or was it an attitude of laissez faire that kept them away from the planning board? Or to be fair to them, were there no errors in the plans for their villages? Whatever the reason, these villages will now not be able to complain that the plan does not reflect the ground reality. They will not be in a position to complain that they were not given an opportunity to present their village plans. They missed it, and so have themselves to blame, as ample time had been given to the local bodies to produce their inputs. If a majority of the panchayats and councils were able to meet the deadline, it can be infered that the others could also do so.
The onus now is on the government to ensure that the inputs from the villages – in most cases complete plans – are neither ignored, nor deliberately set aside. A lot of effort has been put in making the plans, and this effort has to be rewarded by incorporating the plans in the final CZMP. This will also give the people the confidence to engage in consultation with the government the next time there is need for such an exercise. After the experience of a faulty plan, Goa just does not need to discover any error on the new and final plan.
With this phase completed, the plan is now almost in the final stretch, with Goa having till January 31, 2020 to submit the draft CZMP to the NCSCM, following which the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), has to issue the final notification on the plan by April 30, next year. Goa is the last of the coastal States to complete the plan. There was an attempt to fast track the plan, but then Goa got more time. Given the consultations that have taken place at the grassroots level, it has to, therefore, be the best from among all the States.
Goa not only lost time in completing the CZMP to be the last to finalise it, but even clearances for projects were put on hold pending finalisation of the plan. The State shack policy was put on hold because of this. The State has learnt the hard way the consequences of missing a deadline. This should, hopefully, lead the government to not delay taking decisions in future cases. It should also encourage the villages that completed their plans to undertake such exercises in future, knowing that they are capable of doing so, and not relying solely on the government.
