Team Herald
PANJIM: The heat over the Aldona land sale that has embroiled Chief Secretary PK Goel has now caught up with the property’s owner and the engineer who green-lit its land correction.
The High Court of Bombay at Goa has issued notices to land owner Cyril Philip Mendonca and private chartered engineer K H Kamaladhinni. Mendonca sold his Aldona property to Goel after Kamaladhinni had allegedly opined in his report that the property was a fit case for correction under Section 17 (2) of Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act.
In his report, Kamaladhinni, a former PWD executive engineer, had stated, “With the commissioning of the new Mopa airport, the growth around… the Mopa airport will drastically increase and there is an urgent need to make provisions for such growth in the Regional Plan. The panchayat has also requested that more areas be corrected into settlement during the preparation of the Regional Plan (RP) due to this growth. One such growth could have been the applicant’s property, which is Survey No. 36/1, measuring 1,875 square metres."
Direndra Phadte and Jose Maria Miranda, the petitioners, have submitted that Kamaladhinni’s report fabricates and misrepresents facts. A glaring instance is his logic that there was greater demand for settlement area in Aldona panchayat area due to the commissioning of Mopa Airport. But Aldona falls within Bardez Taluka and Mopa is in Pernem Taluka, about 27 km from Aldona, with River Chapora separating the two talukas.
It’s important to note that Aldona village panchayat had not demanded more settlement areas in the Regional Plan (RP) 2021. As for Pernem Taluka, where Mopa is situated, the growth estimated due to the airport’s commissioning was already considered in RP 2021.
Any further growth considerations would have to be part of RP revisions and can’t be seen as corrections or instances of inadvertent or incoherent planning in the RP 2021, the petitioner have argued.
According to the petitioners, Kamaladhinni had stated falsely that the width of the road to the property was six metres, while a TCP inspection has shown that the road is actually three metres wide. Kamaladhinni’s report also does not mention any structure at the site, though the TCP records show that a house and a bungalow stood on the property.
The matter will be heard again on November 19.