MARGAO: The South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) on Tuesday decided to initiate the process of preparing the Outline Development Plan of Margao and Ponda.
SGPDA Member Secretary Ashok Kumar informed that since the land use map process was complete, the Board along with the representatives of the Margao and Ponda municipal councils took the decision on the ODP.
However, civil society is not happy with the Land Use Plan of the SGPDA. Dr Aashish Kamat, president of United Goans Foundation (UGF), informed that he had applied for the Action Taken Report on the Sub-Committee report of the objections received from the public regarding the land use plan. He received a reply stating that the Action Taken report cannot be given since the Board has not yet confirmed the minutes of the meeting.
Interestingly, the SGPDA has made modifications to the format of the Draft Land Use Register. The draft Land Use Register which was released for public scrutiny had only four columns, namely Chalta Number, PT Sheet Number, Zone and area. The latest Register which has been finalised by SGPDA has several other columns such as subgroup, frontage, number of structures, seven columns for land use of seven floors, age of the structure, type of structure, condition of the structure, water, electricity, Plot FSI and Remark.
However, many of the columns are left blank which indicates that the SGPDA has not collected data from the site. The Member Secretary informed that it is not possible to fill all the data since it will take many years to do so. He said the matter has been discussed with the Chief Town Planner.
Dr Kamat, however, was not convinced. “They have not even confirmed the Action Plan for the objections they received for the land use plan and register. How can they finalise it and go ahead with the ODP? ”, he questioned.
“Once the draft is released before the public, they cannot make further changes. They tried doing that the last time while preparing the ODP. As a result, the process was delayed by two years. They are repeating the same mistake of denying people natural justice,” he said
