PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Thursday issued notices to the North Goa Collector, Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department, Santa Cruz Village Panchayat and others for issuing conversion sanad to khazan lands falling in the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP).
The Khazan Society of Goa through its vice president Micael Felix Dias and Judith Almeida of Colva had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) writ petition, challenging the granting of conversion sanad to 3,094 square metres of land at Village Calapor to be used for the purpose of residential use with FAR 60. The land is under the ownership of Santa Cruz Village Panchayat and is seen in the extract of the location Survey Map is barely 200 metres from the Mandovi tributary of Rua de Ourem.
The State government, Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA), Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) and Old Goa Police Station are the other respondents.
The petitioner stated that the conversion sanad was granted when there was a serious lapse of not considering CRZ (No Development Status), which was clearly evident from the CZMP plan.
According to the petitioners lawyer Adv Rohit Bras de Sa, as per the draft Khazan Land Management Plan prepared by the Goa government in context to the CZMP, 2011, khazan lands are described as “artificially reclaimed saline alluvial soils mostly located in the low-lying floodplains of Mandovi and Zuari estuaries. Being below the mean sea level, the land is protected by a series of dikes and bunds” and traditionally used for “rice cultivation, traditional capture fishery or salt production”.