Three planners for Margao!
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, JUNE 15
Too many cooks spoil the soup, so goes the saying. Seems unbelievable, but as many as three different set of plans are being mooted by different agencies to decongest the Commercial Capital.
If the South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) is engaged in an unending exercise of finalizing the Outline Development Plan (ODP) for the city, the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) is pushing the Margao Civic body to approve a City Development Plan (CDP) aimed at improving the chaotic situation and plan for the future.
If these two plans are not enough, the Town and Planning Department headed by Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat has now directed SGPDA to prepare a Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for Margao as a whole.
No doubt, planners say the Outline Development Plan and the Comprehensive Development Plan are part of the long-term planning process implemented in any city, but raised doubts over the legal standing of GSIDC’s grandiose plans to implement a City Development Plan.
Says Margao Municipal Chairperson, Savio Coutinho, who is also a member of the SGPDA: The GSIDC has asked the Margao Municipal Council to give its nod for the City Development Plan (CDP). At yesterday’s SGPDA meeting, the Member secretary said the PDA would set the process in motion to prepare a comprehensive development plan for the city. With so many plans in the offing, I only hope these plans do not overlap or end up in confusion”.
SGPDA Member secretary Sandeep Surlakar, however, said the ODP and the CDP are two different planning concepts. “The Comprehensive Development Plan goes into minute details on the city’s planning needs and requirements. The ODP is altogether different”.
Surlakar said neither the SGPDA nor the members of the PDA have no idea what the City Development Plan (CDP) mooted by the GSIDC and prepared by Architect Rahul Deshpande is all about. “May be the PDA will be taken into account at a later stage. But, the PDA is not averse to any good points from the GSIDC’s CDP plan and incorporating the same in the Comprehensive development plan for the city”, he added.
Interestingly, repeated moves by he GSIDC seeking approval for its City Development Plan (CDP) for Margao has raised eyebrows amongst the city rulers.
Suspicions are raised in certain quarters over the Transfer Development Rights (TDR) mooted in the CDP, which many say would only help the builders to seek transfer of development rights. Another aspect that has raised eyebrows is that the CDP has proposed rehabilitation of the slum dwellers.
What has further raised suspicions over the CDP is the fact that certain parties appear hell bent in pushing the CDP when it is known that funds for the implementation of the plan will not come from the Centre without the State government first restructuring the Municipal administration under the 74th Constitutional Amendment.
Incidentally, the Outline Development Plan for Margao was last finalized in the year 1997 and it’s more than a decade now, but sadly, the new ODP for the Commercial Capital is not put in place.
