MARGAO: The people of South Goa on Thursday warned the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) and the government that they will not accept the plan prepared by the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Chennai.
However, the public was annoyed and left the hearing claiming it to be a totally illegal proceeding. The officials failed to answer who was the presiding officer.
However, late in the evening few speakers visited the venue and put forth their objections and suggestions before the authorities and the hearing continued.
At 6 pm, only 30-40 of the 700-odd speakers were able to put forth their objections and suggestions before the GCZMA. However, hundreds of speakers were present at the venue. There were nearly 80 on-the-spot registrations. Two NCSCM scientists namely Vimal K C and Sukrit Dey, besides GCZMA officials, had to face public criticism.
Till Serial No 20, people spoke and provided suggestions to be included in the CZMP. After Serial No 20, people posed a series of questions and abruptly left the venue in the evening, said a GCZMA official.
Ruckus was witnessed at the venue on time limit allotted to the speakers, besides food arrangements and officials failed to respond to the queries. Residents from Canacona, Salcete, Vasco and from the coastal belt attended the hearing in large number.
Speakers alleged that the CZMP has been prepared to benefit the hoteliers and other corporates. They pointed out that the authorities have marked the proposed areas, ignoring the existing structures such as khazan, fishing areas, rivers, heritage sites, century-old structures and religious ones too.
Speakers demanded denotifying the Port Act, Regional Plan should be superimposed on CZMP, Sagarmala program be revived, make use of village plan, conduct the exercise of preparing the plan by visiting the villages, prepare the CZMP for the betterment of Goa and not for the corporates and declare the coastal areas as heritage sites.
The speakers pointed out several faults in the plan and demanded a totally new plan by taking the stakeholders into confidence. They alleged that the plan has been prepared by bypassing the stakeholders. They claimed that data has not been verified practically as pounds, lake, sand dunes, fishing villages, fishing zones and khazan land are not mentioned in the plan.
They claimed that the GCZMA guidelines have not been followed properly by the agency which prepared the plan. Besides, the locals said the draft CZMP has been done using satellite images and Google Maps, which is not people-friendly but corporate-friendly.
The speakers alleged that anti-people plan is being forced on the public.
They questioned why did the authority fail to approach the people as mentioned in the guidelines? Why the proposed jetties were shown in the plan, ignoring the existing structures? Why were the villages of the riverside not shown?
Surprisingly, all the officials, including the two scientists, failed to answer most queries raised by the speakers. Even the officials could not reply whether this was a public hearing or public consultation?
Two scientists, besides the South Goa Collector Ruchika Katyal, Additional Collector Agnelo Fernandes, Johnson Fernandes, GCZMA official could not reply as to who was the presiding officer till the end.
Prominent speakers who put forth their objections and suggestions were environmentalist Abhijit Prabhudesai, Ramiro Mascarenhas, Cruz Silva, Alvita D’Costa, Diana Tavares, Cruz Silva, Cruz Barreto, Xavier Fernandes, Sidharth Karapurkar (virtual) and others.
All speakers protested and alleged that the public hearing is illegal.
People left the venue at around 6.15 pm stating that they have to reach far places and there is no mention in the notification that the hearing should be non-stop.
Abhijit Prabhudesai said, “First and foremost this public hearing is illegal. Secondly, people have come from far places like Canacona and other areas and they have to go home. We cannot wait here the entire night without food, as we have our families. South Goa Collector has assured us that we will be heard tomorrow”, said Abhijit.
Despite the speakers and participants leaving the venue protesting the proceedings, the GCZMA officials continued calling out the token numbers. After finalising the pre-registered names, officials called out the names of those speakers who had registered on-the-spot. There were nearly 800 speakers, including those who registered for the virtual mode.
