MAPUSA: Aldona villagers at an awareness meeting on Sunday demanded that the draft coastal Zone Management Plan be scrapped.
The meeting organised the Aldona youth also discussed issues such as inclusion of the village in Port Limits, missing low tide line and others.
Roshan Matthias explained the various aspects of CZMP and brought to the notice of the locals that village has been brought under ‘Port Limits’ in draft CZMP.
“Port Limits, which is shown in CZMP of Aldona village, needs to be objected. It looks like it has been bulldozing on CZMP just to legalise destructive forces, which are waiting to grab Goa under port,”, Mathias claimed.
“Major Ports Act has been passed and it will affect Goa in big way wherein ports are given power to make regulations, rules and plan development wherein all planning will be done without consultation of the local body”, Mathias cautioned.
“Even Regional Plan or Village Development Plans will be thrown out as Major Port Act is so dangerous as the board decision will only prevail and unlimited land on sides of river can be acquired under compulsory acquisition and locals will have to take peanut compensation and leave”, Mathias said.
Capt Viriato Fernandes said, “Government is giving us few days to file our objections and suggestions when it took 10 years to make the plan. The entire coast of Goa is shown as port area in the CZMP as 53 kms are shown under MPT. We had raised the objection as Goa is small State and if our beaches are closed then tourists will not come”.
“We are opposing the government move of discarding plan prepared by villagers by bringing in a new one,” Fernandes said.
They demanded that the new CZMP be rejected completely and the plan prepared by the villagers along with panchayat be notified.
“The Government has come up with new CZMP and time given for objection is too less. CZMP prepared by villagers shows corals, sea horses, eco-sensitive zones, migratory birds, fishing nets which are missing in the draft CZMP. The new plan should be scrapped and plan prepared by villagers should be implemented,” Oldrin Pereira demanded.
A section of villagers walked out of the hall as they failed to get satisfied answers to their queries.
Adv Carlos Ferreira said in next two days a petition challenging the public hearing procedure for CZMP would be filed before the High Court.
