Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza, in any case is an outsider in the Parsekar Government, tolerated but not taken on board. But his own inactions and confusions have probably led him to think that he is actually outside the system of governance.
He should forgive any one for believing this when he makes a bizarre comment that the file on the Regional Plan has been moved to the government for it to finally decide the fate of the Regional Plan. The failure to sort out the fate of the vexed and suspended Regional Plan 2011 for over three years is an insult to the basic intelligence of every Goan, who has believed every untruth dished out by the previous Chief Minister, that the plan, kept in abeyance would be sent to their villages for people to have the final say on what their villages would look like in the years to come. The dream of becoming arbitrators of the future of their land has become the worst nightmare for Goans. This government has absolutely no right to play with the aspirations of its people by lying – yes lying, repeatedly and then covering those lies with a maze of confusion that about the future of the Regional Plan -2021.
In November 2014, Francis D’Souza, as the new TCP minister in the Parsekar government started off by echoing Mr Parrikar’s line that the plan would be discussed and notified by December. By April 2015, he said the plan will be released in phases, echoing his earlier figment of imagination that only 15 of the 181 villages had raised objections to the RP, meaning, the rest were fine with it. In May, Herald exposed this fresh untruth, officially called “miscommunication, when it produced an RTI reply by the Chief Town Planner that 161 villages (and not 15) had raised objections to the Regional Plan. And now in July the Dy CM says that the Regional Plan file has “moved” to the government for a final decision on whether the plan would be scrapped, sent to villages or whether the 2002 and the 2021 plans would be “superimposed”.
Herald states officially that it does not believe the Deputy Chief Minister anymore. After his blatant misinformation about only 15 villages objecting to the Regional Plan of their villages (when 161 villages did object), it has doubts whether any such file has moved. Also Francis D’ Souza is the Deputy Chief Minister of Goa. At least that is what we have been told. So is he saying that the file on RP has moved from his right hand to his left hand and he says that the file has gone to the government? We are absolutely sure that the Town and Country Planning department which the Deputy Chief Minister heads will have a different version of this story.
Our demands to the Government and the Deputy Chief Minister are simple. Do not fool the people of Goa anymore. Do not insult their intelligence. Do not test their patience. Scrap the suspended Regional Plan immediately and de-notify it. And finally, send the Draft Regional Plan 20221 back to the people for their final suggestions and implement it vide a fresh notification.
But the government won’t do it, because it needs to get all plans vetted by the lobby of real estate sharks who have pre-decided what their lands will look like and what will come on them. And if the Regional Plan is coming in the way, those areas will be converted to Outline Development Plan areas.
And this merry go round will go on till 2017. But Parsekar and company should be warned. If a people’s Regional Plan is not delivered by then, this government will be booted out so badly that it will run short of plans of ever coming back to power.
