SURAJ NANDREKAR
suraj@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Seeking another two months to furnish the new updated Draft Coastal Zone Management Plan CZMP for Goa, NCSCM has said that some village plans submitted by village panchayats are not in conformity with the CRZ notification, 2011.
The State was asked to submit the plan to the National Green Tribunal by November 15. However, since the plan is not ready yet, the government has sought an extension of six months to submit the plan.
With village panchayts submitting their own draft plans to the State, National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) says it has been receiving local level maps prepared by villages, along with recommendations from GCZMA to incorporate their maps in the draft CZMP of Goa and to prepare updated draft CZMP for public hearing.
NCSCM further says that only about 54 village panchayat have submitted maps till the second week of November 2019 and the remaining about 115 are yet to be received.
“In this regard it is submitted that NCSCM has to thoroughly examine these village maps to determine as to whether these village maps are in conformity with the provisions of CRZ notification 2011 as amended from time to time or not. For example, we have observed that in some maps mangroves have been left out while drawing HTL by village panchayat authorities and are shown outside CRZ,” the NCSCM letter to Member Secretary GCZMA says.
Further, the letter says that even then, NCSCM and GCZMA have to take the village maps as part of suggestions/comments received from the people.
“Thus, inorder to take a proper decision as to whether any content of these village maps will be incorporated in the draft CZMP of Goa, all maps will have to be thoroughly examined in NCSCM. We need two months time to examine these village maps from the date of receipt of complete recommendations from GCZMA,” it says.
Incorporation of public hearing comments/objections
NCSCM further fears that in case of a public hearing, there would hundreds of thousands of more suggestions and objections.
“In a letter you have indicated that public hearing will be conducted after publishing the draft CZMP of Goa. Thus, once again, there will be 100s (if not 1000s) of comments/objections from the public on the updated draft CZMP of Goa, NCSCM and GCZMA will have to thoroughly examine these comments/objections for incorporating them in CZMP as per the provisions contained in the CRZ notifications 2011,” the letter says.
On the current suggestions too, NCSCM says it will have to convene the CZMP Technical Scrutiny Committee meeting to scrutinise and consider the recommendations of GCZMA on the maps prepared by the village officials.
“You are therefore requested to kindly grant two months time for examination of about 169 village level maps prepared by village officials (of which about 115 panchayat village maps are yet to be received) and another one-month time for public hearing of the updated maps and one-month time to examine the suggestions/objections received from the public on draft CZMP of Goa from the date of receipt of complete suggestions/objections from GCZMA to NCSCM,” Dr R Ramesh, Director, NCSCM said in the letter.
