Team Herald
PANJIM: Two months after resolving to review the contentious Section 16B of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act pertaining to zone change, TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane is yet to move forward on it.
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While a speedy action has been initiated to overhaul the Outline Development Plans (ODPs) of the planning areas, the fate of 1,700 applications, whose proposals for zonal change had either received provisional or final approval under Section 16B continues to hang in balance.
The TCP Act was amended in 2018 to add Section 16B and it became a huge source of controversy with NGOs and political opponents terming it a scam. The amendments were challenged in the Bombay High Court at Goa. Over 1,431 provisional approvals and 250 final approvals were granted for the zone since then.
Rane, during his first board meeting held on April 18, resolved to review all the proposals that got consent under Section 16B and to suspend the ODPs, citing irregularities.
The Minister had said that a committee under Chief Town Planner James Mathew will be constituted to review the 16B zone change cases while Rajesh Naik will head the committee on ODPs. A week later, the government suspended Calangute, Candolim, Arpora-Nagoa and Vasco-Da-Gama ODPs due to various discrepancies.
Highly placed sources confirmed HERALD that the government is yet to take a call on Section 16B. “There is no further progress. First, the ODPs would be streamlined,” sources said.
Rane, being out of the country, remained unavailable for the comments.
NGO Goa Foundation and Goa Bachao Abhiyan had in November 2018 moved High Court with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) for quashing and setting aside provisions of law (Section 16B of the Goa Town and Country Planning Act and proviso to Regulation 6.1.1 (d) of the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations, 2010) that seek to allow ad-hoc and arbitrary conversions of privately-owned plots in the Regional Plan based on individual applications from such zone changes.
The Opposition, who had termed the amendment as a major scam, now demands setting up Special Investigating Team (SIT) to investigate all the land conversions that were approved under the controversial Section.
“The TCP Minister is going into various illegalities in the ODPs. We request him to also investigate in detail the land conversion approved under Section 16B. The SIT needs to be constituted,” Deputy Legislative Party leader Sankalp Amonkar said.
