PANJIM: In a major setback to the Goa government, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has dismissed the State’s plea seeking another six months to complete and notify the draft coastal zone management plan (CZMP), which has been pending since 2016.
The NGT had in June this year, set an August 31 deadline to the State to finalise the CZMP. However, with over 7,000-odd suggestions and objections received to the draft plan, the State had sought another six months to complete the process, while placing on record various facts and circumstances that led to the delay.
“The Goa Government’s application seeking six months extension, with effect from August 31, has been dismissed by NGT,” Goa Foundation director Claude Alvares said. Goa Foundation is the petitioner in the main case, where the application for an extension was filed by the State government.
In an application filed before NGT on September 23, Principal Bench, Environment Director Dashrath Redkar had said that Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) received 3,493 suggestions and objections from North Goa and about 4,016 from South since the publication of public hearing notices issued in 2019, March 2021 and again in July, this year and it will require 60 days to complete the entire exercise of physical verification and ground truthing of the same.
Thereafter, the report will be forwarded to the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) for finalisation and verification. Once the draft CZMP is received by the State from NCSCM, the same will be sent to the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) for approval and final notification.
Earlier, in September 2020, NGT, in a final ultimatum to the State, had granted time till January 31, 2021 to complete the CZMP, the same was missed and a further extension till March 31 was granted on account of COVID-19 pandemic.
However, several discrepancies were noted by the NGT in the public hearing held on March 7, as pointed out by Goa Foundation and accordingly, the State was directed to conduct a fresh hearing, which was held on July 8.
The first CZMP of Goa was prepared in 1996 and was used as the base plan for 2011 CZMP. The NCSCM has been working on the plan since 2016.
