PANJIM: In a hard-hitting written submission that covered a range of errors with the draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP), the Salcete-based forum, ‘Citizens for Coastal Communities’ (CfCC), demanded that the ‘irreparably flawed draft CZMPs’ be revoked.
“The CRZ notification mandates consultation with stakeholders for preparation of the CZMPs. However, no consultations have been held with any of the ‘concerned stakeholders – panchayats, municipalities, local communities, fishermen, farmers, toddy tappers and other local residents,” said Xavier Fernandes, forum convenor.
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Abhijit Prabhudesai, who had earlier petitioned the High Court to cancel the recently concluded district public hearings, handed over the forum’s objections to the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) on Monday.
Not only did Prabhudesai list out why the public hearings were allegedly illegal, he also demanded that the hearings be declared as null and void.
CfCC further alleged that the demarcations in the draft CZMP were illegal as well.
“While data was explicitly required to be demarcated such as fishing areas, existing authorized developments, water bodies, bandhs, sluice gates etc are not demarcated. Port Limits and proposed cargo handling jetties, which are nowhere required to be demarcated, are shown all over the CZMP,” said Fernandes.
CfCC also said that there are a lot of areas like fish breeding areas, khazans, flood retention areas, nullahs, etc, which have been wrongly shown. The same is the case with survey numbers and subdivisions.
CfCC demanded that the draft CZMP plans be scrapped and instead, the plans prepared by the villages and submitted by the village panchayats in 2019 be adopted as these plans meet the CRZ notification 2011 guidelines and objectives.
CfCC said the public hearings should be held at the panchayat level, after the draft CZMPs are understood and finalised by the gram sabhas.
