PANJIM: The Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) has objected to the latest notification allowing the Collectors to decide applications for land conversions if NOCs are not issued within 20 days.
As part of the quickening series of attacks on the environment and established constitutional structures of governance, the new single-page notification of dated November 3, 2022 under the Department of Revenue promises the rights to conversion with the Collectors without the need for departmental reports/NOCs/recommendations, if they are not received within 20 days from date of reference made by the Collector.
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GBA convenor Sabina Martins said that such action by a single department or individual is speculative.
Such action has far reaching consequences and without requisite information is terribly wrong, Martins said.
According to Martins, this decision will be based on ‘available information’, which is a contradiction in itself as each department is the repository of information, hence the required check-ins. Such a rule will embolden all departments into inaction with no responsibility.
With no penalty on the departments for wilful delay of reports/NOCs/recommendations, the danger of haphazard and wrongful conversion is real and such action will become the norm to the detriment of planned development of Goa, the GBA said.
This will also focus inordinate power and corruption at a single point, an extremely ill-advised move in a country struggling with runaway graft, said Martins.
This rule undermines existing structures of the Constitution along with the authority of concerned departments and directs damage from an inefficient bureaucracy to destruction of Goa.
The GBA demanded that the notification be stopped and penalties be levied on the departments for every week delay in providing the necessary information beyond 30 days in the name of enforcing efficiency instead.
