MARGAO: Navelim villagers at a special gram sabha on Sunday while rejecting the Coastal Zone Management Plan prepared by National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) from Chennai and demanded that the amount paid to the agency be refunded to the government.
The special gram sabha was held as the government has sent the corrected CZMP to the village asking for its comments on the same before it is finalised.
The villagers pointed out that the CZMP is wrong and has misrepresented various things as no representative of the agency visited the village or met the locals. They pointed out that the fishing areas in the village have not been shown in the plan at all.
Besides, the various salt pans in the village and the sluice gates that prevent the saline water from entering the fields have not been shown and hence prepared their own plan with help from students of Chowgule College which will now be submitted to the government.
Worse was the fact that the CRZ line which was shown in the first draft to be deep inside the village continued at the same place and this mistake in the plan was not corrected at all.
The CZMP prepared by the villagers addresses all the issues and has shown the fishing areas, water bodies, salt pans and also shows agricultural fields.
The villagers also strongly objected to the reportedly Rs 2 crore that has been paid to the agency to prepare the plan and demanded that the amount be refunded to the government. They argued that in the first place the agency has not prepared a correct plan and secondly pointed out that the money paid to them was the tax payer’s money which cannot be squandered.
