PERNEM: As part of Goa Bachao Abhiyan’s (GBA) continued land-use planning awareness outreach to citizens and villages, a large number of people gathered at Arambol for a meeting explaining how the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department continues to work against the people of Goa, environment and future.
Speakers from Ecoxim, Salcete, Pernem, Bhoma and Old Goa elaborated on results of reckless conversions already happening, which destroy hills, forests and fields. Unscientific development will lead to water shortages and misery for Goa’s residents, the results of which will be seen within the next five years, the speakers said.
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The TCP amendments and the Investment Promotion Board (IPB) Industrial Promotion Board laws blatantly favour private and real estate interests. When development is not for the local residents and furthers real estate/business interests, it will soon make local residents voiceless and a minority in their own land. The environment is the first to be destroyed.
In just one example, an Entertainment and Gaming Zone of 100 acres is being set up in the Dhargalim village on cultivable land under the Irrigation Command Area, which is a ‘No Development Zone’ for scientific reasons but has been ignored. The construction density of ‘Deltin Town’ project is so much so that it will dwarf the local population by 900 per cent, and use 18 per cent of the entire Pernem taluka’s water requirements, the GBA stated.
The trend of planning by amendments for private interests is wrong and dangerous because it breaks a system of checks and balances, is in direct conflict with public interest and people’s rights to environment. All stakeholders must be involved in a process of holistic planning, that is why a Regional Plan takes years to make.
Amendments 17(2), 17D, 39A to the TCP Act allow piece-meal changes with no process of people’s participation. Amended farmhouse regulations contradict the definition of farmhouses for farmers and allow 1,000 sqmt built up units, buildings the size of Margao Municipal Council. The Chief Town Planner continued issuing clearances on the suspended ODPs of Calangute-Candolim and Arpora-Parra-Nagoa in a clear act of dereliction of duty. The flood of amendments and changes to the Act continues, undermining the Regional Plan in force and signalling the collapse of governance.
The GBA demanded a better future for the people through immediate revocation of the amendments 17(2), 39A, 17D, and all the conversions made under them. Planning and Zoning areas such as ODP’s must follow from one master plan in force and adhere to its criteria.
It demanded that regional planning be done compulsorily with people’s participation as per Constitutional rights and current environmental protections as per the international Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), of which India is signatory to and to revoke the extension in service granted to chief town planner Rajesh Naik.
