MARGAO: Several people have visited the Salcete TCP office to view the Outline Development Plan since Tuesday and returned unsatisfied as several of their suggestions and objections submitted in the past haven’t been incorporated. There is a sense of overall lack of trust in the exercise amongst the people, and leaders of social organisations have decided to be cautious.
Social activist Shriram Raiturkar claims that the PDA is a body formed to protect the interests of politicians and has no relevance in today’s Goa.
“If the ODP had shown the tenanted lands, agricultural lands and comunidade lands properly in the past this condition would have never arrived. The agitations happened mostly due to width of the roads and problems pertaining to the villages. However, the gesture of opening the ODP is destroyed as the government has already tendered works worth Rs 200 crore for widening of rural roads,” he said.
He said that since the PDA is controlled by politicians they would carefully observe the procedure for any purposeful glitches.
Developer Rajendra Talak who is also involved in the SGPDA says, “This exercise of keeping the ODP open to people is a political move which we all know. There are expert planners in the TCP who can take practical decisions for the future of the State and if it is interrupted by public the whole essence of planning is demolished. I am strictly against the opening of ODPs to public.”
