A Regional Plan is a vision for land use realization through land use mapping for ensuring future holistic planning by acknowledging contemporary realities. It has to be a merit oriented document to usher in healthy sustainable development in the State through proper and accurate distinctions of zoning and clear policy definitions.
The Goa Town & Country Planning Act, 1974 mandates the Chief Town Planner to take such steps for the effective preparation of a Regional Plan for the State. It does not envisage a Task Force in specific terms but the catastrophe of the Regional Plan 2011 and its subsequent scrapping paved the way for the constitution of a Task Force for the first time for the preparation of Regional Plan 2021.
The mandate of the Task Force was to prepare the Draft Regional Plan which would serve as a base plan. The said Task Force prepared Draft Regional Plan was to be forwarded for assimilation to the Village Panchayats and Gram Sabhas to generate and secure suggestions.
The Draft RPG 2021 was certainly a good exercise in as much it mapped fantastically the land resources in a survey number wise fashion thereby also creating an enormously rich pool of data.
When these Draft RPG 2021 plans came to be forwarded to the Panchayats, each of the Panchayats were required to democratically constitute a Village Level Committee (VLC) to sit over the plan and gather suggestions from the Village and the members of the concerned Gram Sabha so as to forward the views in a mapped fashion to the Town & Country Planning Department.
While many village panchayats undertook a healthy participatory process there were also many panchayats which due to excessive politicization or certain other factors did otherwise. Most disappointingly, as records speak, even the healthy, merit oriented and legally sanctified suggestions furnished by many of the Gram Sabhas came to be completely disregarded in the finally notified RPG 2021.
The width of roads passing through villages including Main District Roads (MDRs) came to be reflected in an antithetic context of reality. Concepts like the Micro Industrial Zones (MIZs) and Eco Tourism Zones caught the eye of public storm apart from many other vaguely defined policies and arbitrary insertions. How and from where did this concept of MIZs find place in the notified RPG 2021 is an issue which has been debated. The concept of ‘eco tourism zones’ too as substantiated in the notified RPG release, has been argued by some as a measure to open up eco II zones for development.
Another issue of concern is the vague definition of the concept of ‘natural cover’ in the notified RPG. This zone clearly indicates as comprising probable private forest areas and further permits development on the same level as that permissible in orchard lands thereby raising some very valid concerns.
The buffer zones and regulated development zones around the World Heritage Site and such other places of historical and archeological significance also have not come to be marked on the RPG 2021 in complete variance to the Ancient Monuments and Archeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
Eminent Town Planner Mr. Edgar Rebeiro who was an important part of the Task Force and the State Level Committee (SLC) constituted by the Government to finalize the RP 2021 wrote to the then Chief Minister Digambar Kamat on 28 July 2009 withdrawing himself as a member of the SLC by clearly stating therein the reasons for his withdrawal. Shri Rebeiro had further addressed a detailed letter dated 03/12/2011 to the then Chief Secretary Sanjay Shrivastava as regards the Regional Plan 2021. The contents of the said letter warrant full attention of the Government.
The status of the RPG 2021 as of date is that it has been kept in abeyance in as much it still remains in force and is tested on the touchstone of RPG 2001 for land use settlement permissions as has been disclosed by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Goa Shri Manohar Parrikar on 19th July 2012 in the State Assembly. However while the settlement permissions may be based on the test of both the plans, the policies as declared in RPG 2021 are in force, many of which have genuinely raised serious concerns and hence warrant an urgent revisit.
Upon Shri Manohar Parrikar assuming the reigns of the State as the State’s Chief Minister, the then Governor of Goa, Shri Sankaranarayanan while addressing the first session of the Sixth Legislative Assembly on 20th March 2012 had emphatically declared that ‘My Government will denotify the Regional Plan 2021 and formulate one in due consultations with all stakeholders. My Government firmly believes in grass root planning and participation of people in all developmental activities of the State’. This policy statement of the government was voted and adopted by the House.
Thus while the data collected by the Task Force in preparing Draft RPG 2021 was commendable, arbitrary insertions and certain policy excesses have marred the finally notified RPG 2021. Therefore, the notified RPG 2021 needs a comprehensive re-visit through denotification. Hence while the Draft Task Force Plan needs to be retained, the Government needs to follow a proper participatory process in order to assimilate the said data in the final RPG. The State Government too must ensure that a State Level Committee (SLC), comprising of experienced, knowledgeable and independent expert persons from the fields of Planning, Traffic, power, solid waste management, sewerage, environment and forestry, agriculture, heritage conservation, urban planning, water resources, industry, disaster management inter alia is constituted.
Another issue which needs to be addressed for ensuring holistic planning is the task of bringing the Outline Development Plans (ODP’s) into the domain of Regional Plan process and finally into the plan.
Therefore while we need to address the issue of protecting our ecology and sustaining our ‘unique identity’, we need to advocate sustainable growth and development in desired terms. Hence we need to adopt an all inclusive, realistic, pragmatic and futuristic vision while embarking on the path of holistic planning. Goa is at its crossroads and time is pressing for an ‘identity conscious’ and sustainable Regional Plan.
The author is a socio political activist and has been voicing the need for a
holistic Regional Plan. He can be reached at [email protected]
