Team Herald
PANJIM: The Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) has strongly opposed the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority’s (GCZMA) objections to two sets of documents – Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) and Coastal Zone Management (CZM) maps – that were previously approved, arguing that the objections would undermine the legitimacy of both sets of maps along with the various authorities that have already given approval.
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NCSCM raised these points in a counter-affidavit before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Pune, with Purvaja Ramachandran, Acting Director of NCSCM, voicing her concerns.
The GCZMA had initially recommended the two sets of maps – CZM at 1:4000 scale and CZMP at 1:25000 scale – during a National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) convention in September 2022.
However, the NCZMA concluded that only maps in the 1:25000 scale could be recommended.
This is the crux of the controversy, since the final draft CZM maps on the 1:4,000 scale had already been prepared by NCSCM and submitted to the GCZMA, which was expected to publish these on their website. The NCSCM has also rejected the GCZMA counsel’s claims that the Chennai agency would have to address discrepancies regarding overlapping boundaries in villages on the 1:4000 scale maps.
The NCSCM’s affidavit stated that the GCZMA had never raised concerns about these discrepancies during the six-year preparation period for the CZMP and CZM maps, from April 2016 to September 2022. No discrepancies were flagged during the CZMP approval process by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), the affidavit noted.
