PANJIM: After keeping the Goa Regional Plan 2021 in abeyance due to public protest for nearly over a decade, the State government will now undertake necessary alterations or modifications in the plan.
The government on Thursday notified the amendment to the Goa Town and Country Planning Act, 1974, to undertake alterations or modification of the errors in the Regional Plan 2021 and correct the inconsistent or incoherent zoning proposals.
The Bill to amend the Act was passed during the Winter Session of the State Legislative Assembly, held in January.
“If the government is of the opinion that alteration/modification is necessary to be carried out to the regional plan for the purpose of rectifying any inadvertent error that has occurred in the regional plan, and for correction of inconsistent/ incoherent zoning proposals in the regional plan, it may direct the Chief Town Planner (Planning) to carry out such alteration/modification to the regional plan,” the notification, which has come into force, stated.
“The Chief Town Planner (Planning) shall by notification in the Official Gazette carry out such alteration/modification to the regional plan in such manner and only to such extent as prescribed,” it said further.
Rane had in the past said that the then government’s decision in 2012 to keep Regional Plan 2021 in abeyance was “technically wrong” and led to introduction of controversial Section 16B for zonal change.
In June 2012, then BJP government led by former Chief Minister (late) Manohar Parrikar had frozen the RP-2021under public pressure promising to draft a new plan which never materialised. The plan, however, was not denotified.
In March, 2018, the State government revived RP21 allowing constructions in settlement, commercial areas while prohibiting it in eco-sensitive zones, khazan lands, and other restricted areas.
The RP 2021, which was notified in phase manner from 2008-2011, faced mass opposition and protest from across sections as they feared that the RP would unleash unbridled construction activity damaging the fragile ecology of the coastal State.
Over 8,500 individual comments were received in addition to the comments/inputs from 176 Village Panchayats out of 188 and eight out of nine municipal councils; majority of them demanded that the plan be scrapped.
