Amidst scenes reminiscent of the people’s movement against the Regional Plan 2011, hundreds of people gathered outside the Town and Country Planning office at Patto Panjim and massively objected to and demanded the scrapping of the proposed Goa Land Development & Building Construction Regulation Amendment 2022. They also demanded the scrapping of the Regional Plan 2021. Activists alleged that many projects were pre-planned and the amendment was planned after being pressurized by real estate brokers.
As many as 17 amendments have been proposed in the draft Goa Land Development and Building Construction (Amendment) Regulations which was notified by the Town and Country Planning (TCP) department on August 29 this year.
Over the last couple of weeks, there have been multiple public meetings held in various parts of the State as well as village panchayat gram sabhas. The activists stated that they will not just stop after the TCP deadline for submissions is over but will continue to keep a vigil on what the TCP plans to do and are fully ready to come on the streets and protest if the State government decides to ignore their detailed and written objections and instead notifies the proposed amendments, which according to them will change the identity and way of life in Goa. The TCP has already received thousands of objections already, a clear reflection of how the majority of the public feels about the government’s plans.
