It was a poignant afternoon in the studious of our TV arm HCN last week. Three long term acquaintances, and another fiery, but very low profile activist gathered together to- perhaps for the first time- re-analyse an issue which is at the core of Goa’s present and its future- the Regional Plan.
In many ways the sense that the people of Goa have got from the way the BJP government has pro actively gone against the promises made to the people of Goa is that plan meant to demarcate and allocate land for various uses has been held hostage by powerful lobbies. Which is why a plan kept in abeyance for three years will now be revived without any people’s participation which the Congress government had planned. And the plan that the same government derailed in the final stage with huge deviations from t he draft stage.
At the studios was Digambar Kamat, the architect of the Regional Plan but sadly also the man who oversaw its demise as lobbies at both the village level, at the Town and Country Planning Department and his government hijacked the draft plan and inserted clauses and categories to pave the way from rampant construction outside the ambit and the spirit of the original Regional plan.
Then there was Dean D Cruz, one of the most prominent architects in the Task Force set up to draft the Regional Plan, a task accomplished very professionally till a few things happened. The only Town Planner in the Task Force the reputed Edgar Ribeiro quit, out of hurt as the plan he made at the draft stages started getting completely de-railed. D Cruz was then left to face charges that there was a conflict of interest since he was a practicing architect and dealt with many builders who would have pressurised him into making changes. He admitted to the pressure but not to buckling to it.
And there was Dr Oscar Rebello, the embodiment of why this Regional Pan became a product of people’s angst against the unjust plundering of our land and resources. He has borne the burden of not taking this fight to its logical conclusion through his personal involvement and possibly his political involvement. While that jury is out, the good doctor agrees that it is only a people’s surge that can unlock all government bottlenecks because politicians in opposition use peoples movements only to discard them when the return to power.
Lastly the unsung hero was Sriram Raiturcar who has relentlessly fought against land grand by the powerful and the rich especially in South Goa and is a consistent crusader of how illegalities have triumphed in ODP areas like Margao which are outside the ambit of the Regional Plan. Herald and he agreed and did others that Goa must have one plan and not ODP areas and RP areas.
But the biggest take away was this. DIgambar Kamat admitted that while the intention of introducing Eco tourism zones in the final Regional Plan was to encourage more investment and development for tourism, they basically turned out to be Housing Projects that came in through the back door. While we commend the admission we will be failing if we do not put the blame on the former Chief Ministers door, because the beast of Eco Tourism Zones was forced into the plan after pressure from the building lobby. The Tiracol Golf Course and villa project, which pre-dated the Regional Pan, got its recognition and clearances as a Eco tourism project. The land that the people of Tiracol have lost through duplicity would have all been protected if this project did not get validity by the government through the tag of an “eco tourism project”, which it clearly isn’t.
The clearances that the project proponents have got through a pliable government like the BJP, would have been blocked if this area was not available and was firmly marked in the plan to be preserved for the people and not handed over to rampant building lobbies.
All in all, we got conversations going, we got memories re activated and above all we hopefully got the spirits being rekindled of the people of Goa to still fight for a just peoples plan.
