PRARIK PARAB
pratik@herald-goa.com
Panjim: The Chief Minister's comment to the media to investigate the reality of the Bhutani project is turning out to be a self-goal. So much so that even the land was converted from private forest to commercial land during the erstwhile government of the BJP.
However, the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and the Forest & Town and Country Planning (TCP) Minister Vishwajit Rane continue to spell out hollow defence in this matter.
This is what the Chief Minister said a couple of days ago: "The media should find out who converted the land and who had given permissions to this (Bhutani) project. You will know when the process was started and everything will open up.”
But digging deep into paper trail of the Sancoale land, it was revealed that conversion of land from private forest to Settlement Zone (1) and from S1 to Commercial Zone (1) happened in the regime of the BJP government. O Heraldo has accessed several documents, of which two are most important.
One is the document that shows how the land was converted from Agriculture land to S2 Zone in 2007 for M tech which allows only 80 FAR. The land was then classified to private forests between 2012 and 2017.
Importantly, this land was converted to C-1 Commercial as late as November 2023, very much under this current government with the same CM and TCP minister. This allows 200 FAR for construction.
However, what happened between this is interesting. The residents of Sancoale, who have been keeping track of the developments around the land say that it was classified as a private forest from S2 Zone, as per the recommendations of the Araujo Committee.
Surprisingly, another document that OHeraldo has access to, shows that in 2023 the authorities not just converted the land to C1 (200 FAR) but the Outline Development Plan of Mormugao was also tweaked for the needs of this housing project proponent Parmesh Constructions aka Bhutani Infra.
The TCP Department went one step ahead and recommended the Development Permission for Parmesh Constructions, overruling all MPDA observations (objections). This was also done on 18.01.2024, by this very government.
Peter D'Souza, a Sancoale stakeholder who is investigating the matter as a citizen and fully aware, said, "The Chief Minister is challenging the media to investigate the matter. But what has been found in the same is pointing out to his government itself. It is clear that the Government has favoured the developer and given red carpet for the development of this land," he said.
Narayan Naik said, "This was an agricultural land, a forest land where our revered local deity Sankhlyo roamed for years. People have seen him as well. The BJP has no regard for gods and local deities."