Team Herald
MARGAO: Objections to the Goa Land Revenue (Conversion of use of land and non-agricultural assessment) (Amendment) Rules, 2022 have been submitted by activist Swapnesh Sherlekar to the Revenue Department on Monday.
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Sherlekar, President of the Goencho Swabhiman Party (GSP) warned that the proposed amendment is for expediting the entire process of converting agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, would instead lead to higher probability of erring in decision making by the Collectors in absence of the recommendations/NOCs from the concerned departments as proposed.
In the first of his ten-point objections, Sherlekar also pointed out that eliminating the need for NOC of the Forest Department in deciding the conversion of land matter, will be in violation of a Supreme Court order and voiced his strong objection to this. “The data related to private forests of the State is still under review and not yet finalized. This information is presently not in public domain and is exclusively with the Forest Department,” said Sherlekar.
“Besides, if there was any complaint of illegal tree felling in the parcel of land, proposed for conversion, the same information may not be available to the Collector while making the decision. In these circumstances, as listed above, it will be impossible for the Collector to determine the tree canopy density in a particular parcel of land, present or past, proposed for conversion, in absence of Recommendations from the Forest Department,” he added.
Sherlekar further described the problems that could arise given that if the Collector is unable to get the NOC/ recommendations from the departments concerned within 20 days, the Collector has to work in ‘Stand-alone’ manner while making decisions on conversion sanad application without any assistance from his subordinates.
He suggested that a mechanism could also be devised for simultaneously forwarding /uploading the e-copy of the Recommendation/NOC as issued to the Applicant by the departments concerned, to the Collector for verifying the authenticity of the document at the time of decision making. The said NOC can have a validity of 3 months or so for fast & easy tracking of the e-copies of the records by the Collector,” he added.
