CM comes with crazy ideas; feels every inch should be mined, says Gauns
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar came in for flak from environmentalists for saying that he will prevail on the BJP government at Centre to relax Coastal Regulation Zone norms and secondly to review the Kasturirangan Committee report which locks out large swatches of the Western Ghats for any economic activity.
Adv Norma Alvares, who is amicus curiae in the suo moto petition taken up by the Bombay High Court at Goa on CRZ structures in getting structures in Morjim, Ashwem and Mandrem demolished. She said that, Parrikar’s utterances betray a suspicious intent as Goa’s traditional communities are already protected under the current CRZ regime of 2011.
“All that the State government is required to do is to identify these communities and make a proposal for permitting their constructions upto 50m of the HTL. The Congress did nothing. But pray, what has the BJP government done to help the traditional coastal communities since 2012 when it came to power? Nothing!” Alvares said, adding that way back in 2011 when the new CRZ notification was passed which made adequate provision specifically for Goa’s traditional communities.
“Parrikar does not know that the law is already there. No need of favours from Modi. But who will compel the Parrikar government to stop talking and start acting? God knows,” Alvares said.
Parrikar had said that the BJP will ensure that CRZ rules would be amended if Narendra Modi becomes the prime minister of India. The relaxation of CRZ rules has been a long-pending demand of coastal communities. He had said this while speaking to stakeholders in Candolim and Calangute along with his MLA Michael Lobo, who contended that “a lot of people in his constituency have properties in CRZ areas and are unable to construct anything”.
The statement fuels suspicion that this is yet another thoughtless promise of Manohar Parrikar that is set to allow large scale constructions along the already crowded coastal areas of the State.
It is important to remember that recently Chief Minister inaugurated a restaurant by his close aide Anil Hoble, which was later asked to shut down by the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority, which also wrote to all other government agencies not to grant him permission to operate as it was in violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone rules.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar other statement, that he will ‘review’ the Dr K Kasturirangan-led 10-member high-level working group report, on eco-sensitive zones in Western Ghats on grounds that the report will lead to a de facto ban on mining in Goa, has been condemned. Parrikar said 109 villages of tiny coastal State covering 40 per cent of the area of the State will come under eco-sensitive zone, thus bringing any development activity to a halt, as per the report.
“We have not accepted the report,” he said. The State had also criticised the Madhav Gadgil committee report on Western Ghats.
Attacking the utterances of Parrikar, national award winning teacher and anti-mining campaigner Ramesh Gauns said that this was Parrikar’s way of giving mine owners access to eco-sensitive zones in the State, something that the Central government had stopped through this report.
“An explanation for this is very simple. He is mad after the mining lobby by giving access to green areas. Not the least bothered about its consequences,” Gauns said.
“He comes up with these crazy ideas every now and then, and is of the view of that every inch of Goa should be mined,” he added.
Ever since the Supreme Court imposed a mining ban in the State, Parrikar has been ranting and raving about how, it is the duty of the State government and not the Supreme Court. He even recently hit out at how a cap should be set by the State government and not a Supreme Court appointed committee, besides also in the initial days even calling petitioner Claude Alvares as “malicious”.
Parrikar has often been called into question for empty promises the most glaring being that on the Regional Plan.
