PANJIM: Goa Foundation (GF) on Thursday said that the application to the National Green Tribunal made by them and Goenche Ramponkar Ekvott (GRE) concerned solely the deficient notices issued for the public hearings on March 7 and the conduct of the Goa government during the period of the hearings. The Coastal Zone Management Plans (CZMPs) were not challenged before the tribunal, GF Director Claude Alvares said.
“Neither the Goa government nor the applicants produced any CZMPs before the NGT, so the question of NGT not objecting to the plans already prepared does not arise. The draft CZMPs were neither presented, nor discussed, nor challenged. This is because the challenge was purely to the illegality of the public hearings which was upheld,” Alvares said.
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A day earlier, Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral had claimed that the NGT order directing fresh public hearings of the plans had not been a real setback to the Goa government, and only the minor issue of procedural errors relating to the public hearing had to be redressed. Cabral had also said that NGT had nothing negative to say about the draft CZMPs.
Alvares added, “From his (Cabral) statement, it is clear that the Goa government will continue to treat the opinions of affected persons from the various coastal villages in Goa with scant respect. The idea is to push the exercise through, down an unwilling public’s throat.”
GF further pointed out that the CRZ notification itself states that the ‘State Government or Union territory CZMA shall submit the draft CZMPs to MoEF along with its recommendations on the CZMP within a period of six months after incorporating the suggestions and objections received from the stakeholders’.
“The GCZMA has six months to do its work and to do it well, after the public hearings are completed,” Alvares said.
He added that as per the government’s admission there were more than 5000 comments and suggestions already received on the draft CZMPs. “We are talking of amending 254 maps, after the hearings are completed. Even if the GCZMA undertook to correct one map a day, this would
involve another three months after the hearings and after all data and information has come in,” Alvares added.
“This is not the question of who wins or loses, civil society or the Goa government. The Goa government did nothing for seven years. It is the State of Goa and its ecology and environment that need stable and sound protection if it is to survive into the next generation. For that, soundly prepared CZMPs with in-depth information from local residents and villagers including the fishing community, is the only guarantee,” Alvares concluded.
