Vijai blames CM for delaying regional plan
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Even as just four MLAs ~ one each from the BJP, Congress, GVP and an independent ~ turned up for the arranged interaction with Goa Bachao Abhiyan, the outfit pushed for breaking the deadlock on the issue of the regional plan seeking an assurance from the MLAs that they will get the government to move forward on the issue.
The four MLAs ~ Nilesh Cabral (BJP), Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenço (Congress), Vijai Sardessai (Independent) and Francisco Mickky Pacheco (GVP) ~ each offered a different view on the whole issue. There was no MLA from MGP at the interaction.
Cabral who is from the ruling party, defended his government actions promising to look into the issues raised by GBA, and put them before the relevant fora including the Town and Country Planning department.
The GBA, first sought an amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act to include people’s participation in regional plans as envisaged in the 73rd and 74th amendment to the Constitution, in order that such a system of drafting future regional plans be carried forward for posterity.
Second, they demanded the setting up of a committee with members from all sections to frame guidelines on the basis of which the new or rectified plan will be drawn up, a kind of second State-level committee, and lastly they demanded that the government with all sincerity should act against continuing violations.
A resolution listing out the four points was passed at the end of the meeting with the MLAs agreeing to take it up in their own way with the government.
Besides Cabral, Reginaldo asked the GBA to draft an amended TCP Act and submit it to him which he would then place before the legislature either through a private members bill or giving it to the government and seek that they move the bill in the interest of the State. Cabral too agreed to “look at” the version of the bill drafted by the GBA.
Vijai Sardessai upped the ante against the current government for delaying the passage of the new regional plan and blamed the chief minister for it.
“The same Parrikar who joined forces with the GBA and other organizations when he was in the opposition, today is the culprit. The GBA too has realised that they have been used,” Sardessai said.
Later speaking to media persons Mickky Pacheco said that he has already raised several issues with the government, especially that of mushrooming farmhouses and other arbitrariness in the development of the State in the absence of a regional plan.
The GBA on its part made it a point to express its desperation on account of the stalled process, even as ‘development continues’ and “in many cases the permissions given are suspect.”
The reasons why other MLAs abstained from the interaction are not known.
