While Margao’s Vision 2041 Master Plan is gaining traction as consultants return to showcase a revamped blueprint for the commercial capital, South Goa’s broader constitutional planning process lies in tatters.
The District Planning Committee (DPC) — the statutory body responsible for consolidating development plans from panchayats, municipalities, and the Zilla Panchayat — has failed to meet in recent months. More worryingly, it has not prepared a district development plan for the current financial year (2025–26). No instructions have been issued to local bodies to submit fresh proposals, signalling a complete breakdown in the official planning mechanism.
This inaction follows a backlog of over 3,400 development proposals submitted during the previous financial year (2023–24), none of which have been addressed. A senior official admitted bluntly, “We didn’t even initiate the process this year. What’s the point in collecting new proposals when last year’s are still sitting unattended?”
Despite this administrative vacuum, no queries have been raised by the Directorate of Panchayats or the state government, and officials from the South Goa Zilla Panchayat confirmed that no consolidated plan had been drawn up or sent to the government for the upcoming year.
The silence has prompted sharp criticism from grassroots activists and governance experts, who say the collapse of the DPC undermines decentralisation and subverts the vision of bottom-up planning enshrined in the Constitution.
“These committees aren’t optional,” said J Santan Rodrigues, convenor of the Goa Panchayati Raj Institutions Union. “They are constitutionally mandated to ensure local development needs are integrated into the district’s plan. The silence around their collapse is deeply worrying.”
Rodrigues also questioned the government’s selective approach: “If the goal is to attract central funding for Margao, why not pursue funds for the entire district through the DPC process? The government’s actions reflect selective governance and misplaced priorities.”
The contrast was stark earlier this month when consultants from Studio Pod, appointed by the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA), made a second public presentation of the Margao Master Plan at the Municipal Council hall. While the plan’s details drew attention, many were concerned about the pace with which it is advancing—especially in the absence of a functioning statutory process. The United Goans Foundation (UGF), which had previously moved the High Court over the state’s failure to implement Article 243ZD of the Constitution, used the occasion to highlight the Margao Municipal Council’s (MMC) non-compliance with court directives.
“How many annual development plans has the MMC ever submitted to the DPC?” asked UGF convenor Dr Ashish Kamat at the meeting. “They’re rushing to endorse this master plan, but haven’t followed the process they are legally bound to.”
Kamat pointed out that the High Court had already laid down guidelines for how local bodies should submit their development plans for inclusion in the district plan. “Has the MMC complied? If so, let them publish those plans. If not, why the rush?”
At the centre of this governance gap lies Section 239 of the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, which mandates the creation of a DPC in every district. The committee is meant to prepare a unified development plan by integrating inputs from panchayats, municipalities and the Zilla Panchayat. The Act also requires the DPC to consult with relevant institutions and submit the final plan to the government.
That process, critics point out, has not merely stalled — it appears to have been abandoned entirely. As Margao’s Vision 2041 gathers momentum, promising major changes to land use, infrastructure, and investment, rural and semi-urban areas across South Goa are left without a voice in the conversation.
What emerges, say observers, is a planning process tilted heavily in favour of urban centres, leaving the rest of the district in limbo — waiting for proposals to be acknowledged, funds to be allocated, and governance to catch up.