MARGAO: The long-awaited completion of Goa’s Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 2019 has hit another roadblock, further delaying its implementation.
The National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, the agency entrusted with finalising the plan, has informed the State government that it cannot meet the original deadline of May 31, 2024. Instead, they have proposed a revised timeline, extending the completion date to January 2025, citing inconsistencies in the administrative boundary data provided by the state government.
This latest delay adds to the already protracted process that has spanned over four years, leaving stakeholders eagerly awaiting the final plan to understand the environmental regulations and development guidelines for the state’s sensitive coastal areas.
The delay has also raised concerns among environmental activists and coastal communities about the potential impact of unregulated development on the fragile coastal ecosystem.
According to the revised schedule, public hearings in each district to finalise the plan are now scheduled to take place between November and December 2024. Following these hearings, NCESS will conduct field verifications and make necessary adjustments based on any objections or suggestions raised during the public consultation process. The finalized CZMP 2019 maps and reports, including detailed 1:4000 scale maps, will be submitted to the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) by the end of January 2025.
The primary reason for the postponement lies in the errors and inconsistencies found in the modified cadastral data and administrative boundaries provided by the GCZMA. These errors include discrepancies in village borders, overlapping survey plots, gaps between adjacent plots, missing road data, incorrect High Tide Line (HTL) marks, and incomplete district, municipal, taluka, and panchayat boundaries.
NCESS has emphasized that using the flawed data to update the 1:4000 scale maps would result in inaccurate coastal zone management plans, ultimately defeating the purpose of the exercise. The initial issues surfaced when the 1:4000 scale maps prepared by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) in Chennai did not align with Goa’s actual cadastral plans.
The delay has sparked concerns among various stakeholders, including environmentalists, coastal communities, and the tourism industry, who have been eagerly awaiting the implementation of the CZMP. The state government has assured that it is committed to addressing the issues and ensuring the accuracy of the data, but the repeated delays have raised doubts about the efficacy of the process.
It may be recalled that in late February, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) instructed the GCZMA to address discrepancies in the CZMP 2011 within three months.
There have also been meetings held in New Delhi in this regard with the State government and the Union Ministry of Environment (MoEF) as well in Chennai, where officials from State Environment Department, Land Survey department etc had recently travelled to Chennai to meet the NCSCM, where the Goa team managed to prevail upon latter that the corrections had to be made urgently.
