PANJIM: After the National Green Tribunal (NGT) decided to withhold the beach shack policy until the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) is submitted by the State, the government of Goa has decided to speed up finalisation of the coastal plan.
Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral said the State government has decided to close the CZMP by October 5, and that the plan would be made final without any more changes.
Cabral said that the plan would then be sent to the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSM), Chennai, which in turn will submit it to Coastal Zone Management Authority (CZMA).
“I have decided that whatever representations have been received are enough. We will finalise the plan from our end. We will send it to NCSM and we will close the plan by say Oct 5 from our side. I will not withdraw the plan anymore,” Cabral said.
It may be recalled that in July August when Cabral held public consultationon the CZMP he was booed from various talukas without any discussion, leading to the consultations being later withdrawn.
In all nine panchayats have prepared their own CZMPs, which have been sent to NCSM for inputs.
The Environment Department will send the village level plans prepared by NCSM to all the village panchayats within the next 2-3 days and also upload them on department website, Cabral said. “Land use plan can be sent later. We will finish this notification plan,” Cabral added.
Cabral had earlier stated that it was impossible to close the plan by November 15. Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant had also said that the State would approach NGT to reconsider decision on beach shack policy.
