Over hundreds of villagers from St Estevam, on Thursday marched into the Town and Country Planning (TCP) office demanding that their village be preserved and maintained restoring it to its original state making necessary changes in the Regional Plan 2021 (RP21). Villagers accused the plan of being drafted by the government in favour of real estate developers. Chief Town Planner, Dr S T Putturaju assured the villagers that the RP21 would be kept open for public suggestions and objections shortly and a special facilitation programme would be undertaken, wherein each village panchayat would be given an opportunity to present their views. “The plan will be kept open before the Ganesh Chaturthi festival,” he told Herald.
A five member delegation led by Father Dominic Sequeira met Putturaju and submitted the memorandum. The delegation, later in the afternoon also presented their grievances before the Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for TCP, Francis De Souza and Chief Secretary (acting) R K Srivastav. During the meeting with Putturaju, the delegation stressed upon the Gram Sabha resolution passed on April 4, 2009, wherein they had demanded that the St Estevam Island needs to be preserved in its (then) present form. The villagers said that they will not accept any compromise or amicable solution over the matter.
One of the major demands put forth by the delegation was that their village planning should be as per the cadastral plan and that they are not in favour of road widening from 4 meters to 25 meters as shown in RP21. They demanded that the same be scrapped. “We will not allow the government to develop any roads without taking permission of the general body of comunidade of Jua (St Estevam) to destroy nature and our ancestral houses which are very close to one another,” Leo Dias, a villager, said. Dias, along with Fr Sequeira questioned the Chief Town Planner on how an Orchard Zone was fully marked as a settlement zone, while certain portion of Khazan land was also converted into settlement zones in RP21.
The survey numbers 224, 202, 233, 177, 226, 225, 199, 212, 164- which are ECo-Zone I are shown as settlement zones and the villagers demanded that the same be scrapped and restored back to Eco-Zone. They also raised strong objections to illegal construction of bunds and to the new bridge at Tona. “In spite of giving all the required suggestion for RP21, the government went ahead to make a plan as per their wishes, contradicting the village plan. The RP21 prepared by the government is in favour of a building lobby,” Dias said.
Trying to settle the grievances of the villagers, Putturaju assured that no more further decline in eco-sensitive zones would be permitted by the government at St Estevam. “There are various issues raised by different village panchayats and the government has to look into all of them,” he said. The villagers marched from KTC bus stop, Panjim to the TCP office. A huge police force was deployed on the spot, which restricted entry of the villagers into the TCP office.
