100-room resort. Charles (Correia) asked them if they wanted a 100-room or even 200-room resort, why did they want to convert 5 or 10 lakh square metres of land? That is how eco-tourism zones came. The eco-tourism zone was defined. Five percent FAR is given. And maximum capping was done of 50,000 sq mts. Even if you have 10 lakh sq mts, you can construct maximum 50,000 sq mts for a resort, and that also for a tourism resort.
Herald: But the unfortunate part is the Tiracol golf course and the RD infrastructure at Loliem are products of this very plan.
D’Cruz: I was not for the eco-tourism thing, but there were even gram sabha resolutions saying they wanted it. We were forced because we were taking on board gram sabha resolutions. A lot of gram sabhas are highjacked completely. The people say they want this eco-resort or whatever.
Herald: So let’s put that on record. The very fact that there was a pressure happening it was not completely a resolution *[All panelists talking here]. Mr Kamat, now I’m talking specifically about the R & D infrastructure at Loliem. There was a huge scam backed by a minister in your government.
Kamat: Migration is taking place in Canacona. These two talukas are completely undeveloped talukas. If the taluka gets developed by putting up such tourism-related projects, I don’t think there should be any problem.
Herald: I agree in principal, but what is happening in Tiracol is a fitting response to how this has gone wrong.
Rebello: Absolutely. To my mind, this is where we faltered. Effectively, the plan was still a very good plan, but these insertions came in. From whatever pressures, they came in. They were the problems. What we needed to do was basically identify where these problems were, rectify them, not allow them or give them permissions for those monstrous developments taking place, whatever. We needed to identify that and weed it out. That has been the consistent demand of the GBA eventually as well. What effectively happened is we’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Today we don’t have any kind of official document that says this is an eco-sensitive zone or this is a mangrove. You don’t have a legal document. So even when you go to court, you’re in a kind of legal limbo because you don’t have a document to say this is an eco-sensitive zone. That is ultimately what I thought our plan was to be; to at least preserve Goa’s environment. Planning is one part of it, but the environment was what was required to be protected. But we’ve thrown that out.
D’Cruz: Eco-tourism zones were supposed to have a proper policy before their implementation. The government just took the basic mapping, the dot over there and said, “Fine. Now you got your dot over there. You can start your hotel.”
Herald: Shrirambab, whatever the problems we’re are discussing under the RP banner, can you give us some examples of the same problems happening in the ODP areas.
Raiturkar: In ODP, it is very difficult to get even 200 sq mts of land. Secondly, people had doubts about these eco-tourism zones because it was incorporated after draft settlement. That is the main issue. People had doubts that politicians might have taken a lot of money from industrialists to grab land and give them certain places of maybe 5 lakh sq mts. In Canacona and Loliem, who is going to come and stay there? Where is the infrastructure there? Wherever ODP is concerned, open spaces are just shown, but no open spaces are actually there. Afterwards some commercial zones have changed. That is all ‘setting’ between the builders lobby and politicians.
Rebello: It is a trust deficit between the builders and politicians.
D’Cruz: Once you realize what the project reports that we saw on these places, whether its Tiracol or Loliem, there are actually real estate housing developments.
Kamat: In the plans, we gave a block and we said eco-tourism was defined. Modalities, approvals – even tomorrow, if the panchayat doesn’t want to approve despite that, the panchayat is free to reject. It is a local self-government body. That is why we started that facilitation centre. When we realized there were some issues which the panchayat feels that, “Yes, this is wrongly shown or some crematorium is shown at a wrong place”, we asked them to come and they will inspect the site, and on the spot they will take a decision.
Herald: One frank question. While you were chief minister, you had powerful ministers with very powerful vested interests. Let’s be open and honest about this. Between the draft plan and the final plan, can you say that you faced no pressure from any of your cabinet colleagues for conversions?
Kamat: There was tremendous pressure. I had made many categorical statements. Charles had also told me that if I brought political pressure he would go. He was doing an honorary job; his prestige was at stake. I told everybody right from the beginning that whatever they wanted to say, they should give it in writing and I would give it to the state-level committee. I hardly attended the meeting, but, whatever the state-level committee has deliberated, I have agreed. I had no objections.
Herald: What kind of pressures did you face? Did you have politicians coming to you on behalf of industrialists and saying, “please do this for them?”
Kamat: No. That pressure was not there. Here, even in the case of eco-tourism, when their applications were seen, one side they were saying they wanted to put up a tourism resort. Other side they are asking for conversion of 10 lakh sq mts of land. How is it justified? That is why they were asked to give a presentation first. Only then the eco-tourism zone was inserted. Not because of anything else. It is not that they will construct 5 lakh sq mts of land.
Herald: Are you saying the eco-tourism zones were inserted after these applications came?
Kamat: No, they were there under consideration. Where had they given eco-tourism zones? Only in those areas where talukas did not have anything. Developable talukas.
Rebello: There was an extreme amount of emotions in terms of protecting the environment, protecting our landmass for future generations, and thereby protecting our Goan culture/identity/heritage. Where we have faltered, and I think this is what is happening with successive governments, is that we are unable to put an economic plan in place for whatever areas for the people of Goa. You and I can have the luxury of looking at the plan, looking at the environment and looking at the rest of it. At the end of the day, people at the grassroot level require an economy to run for them, they require the jobs. And that is what the politician provides. If we alleged intellectual thinkers are unable to put up an economic plan, stand by that economic plan, say which areas are permitted for that economic plan, and not going back on that – the politician is just going to take the easy way out. He is just going to be able to do these kinds of conversions where he makes his buck and he provides the jobs for his constituency. We’re just going to have this sort of lopsided economic development all over the place backed by politicians of all hues if we don’t stand by an economic plan, as activists, budding politicians or whatever.
Herald: Dean, since you all are also practicing professionals, didn’t you face this whole conflict of interest, where your clients or people came and said, “Look, we need to do this. We need to build here. Do this for us. Why don’t you help us with this type of conversion?” Didn’t all these pressures come on you?
D’Cruz: Not to me directly, but yes, you could make out they were coming definitely through the town and country department. The town-planning is extremely slippery. While we were preparing the plan, suddenly we would see something appear out of the blue. Each time we prepared a plan we would sign it. For every village there are fifteen different layers. Every time we would go through it, correct it, we’d sign on it, mark it and keep on preparing. The next time, suddenly we would see one little bit added over there. We started marking every little change, every little thing that we did in the plan. Right till the last day in my own village, I saw something added before we could sign the plan.
Herald: Added by whom?
D’Cruz: Added by the people in the town planning department. They have their own draftsmen over there.
Rebello: It’s impossible for people like Dean and Charles to go with a microscope. There’s a lot of paint-brushing. It is impossible for five or six activists to really monitor something that a corrupt department is going to push through.
Raiturkar: I want to give an example. It is not a question of incorporation by politicians. The properties that were rejected by saying that it is a paddy field, finally appeared as a settlement in the regional plan. That’s 5,000 sq mts. It was rejected for being a paddy field, but finally appeared as a settlement in the notified plan.
Herald: These are discrepancies that need to be looked into.
Rebello: Exactly this is the point. We needed to identify what were these insertions, eliminate them, and freeze the plan. This is what we needed to do, but unfortunately we missed that.
Herald: For our final segment we’ll talk of a few subjects that we left unattended and then look for solutions. I’ll go straight to Digambarbab. We were having a very interesting discussion on these eco-tourism zones and MIZs and so on. We’ll come straight to the Tiracol issue because it’s burning. It came in through the eco-tourism zone, but as even Dean said, ultimately these are huge housing projects that have come in under the garb of eco-resorts. Couldn’t your government have seen this happening and put a stop to it.
Kamat: The regional plan has not gone into the details of what you will construct. That has to be seen subsequently. In the regional plan, eco-tourism box was given. And that block was defined; what are the terms and conditions under which this area could be developed. One condition was that it should be a resort. Capping was also done. Even if you have 10 or 15 lakh sq mts, maximum capping was 50,000 sq mts of land. If somebody is trying to take advantage of that and create something else, then it is for those authorities who will give subsequent approvals.
Herald: Dean, since you were a part of this, couldn’t you have seen through the whole façade?
D’Cruz: I could definitely see through the whole façade.
Herald: So why didn’t you put your foot down.
D’Cruz: Before this was being implemented, I should have actually put my dissent down in writing. During the discussions, I said it was definitely a scam in the making. You can clearly see while going through the projects they were planning that these were going to be housing projects. For example: In Tiracol, even though it’s marked as an eco-tourism area, they’ve already got their sanad. The plan was supposed to be in abeyance. You can see the complete connivance of the town-planning department with them. And the sanad will allow them to construct much more than 50,000 sq mts of land.
Herald: These eco-tourism zones were whose brainchild? Who conceived this?
D’Cruz: It really came about through a consensus in the state-level committee as there was pressure that this land was going to be converted. How do we stop the conversion? Let’s put a policy that it can be used only for tourism purposes.
Herald: Are we clear in saying the eco-tourism zones were basically a by-product of the pressure.
D’Cruz: Absolutely. They’re just vents for pressure. There were a lot of sayings that if you don’t provide this, the government is going to fall.
Herald: That needs to come out. The people of Goa need to know this.
Kamat: There were resolutions even in the gram sabhas on these issues. If you go through the details you will probably find that all the gram sabhas have unanimously recommended that they require these.
Herald: I’m not saying the by-product of the pressure is only from politicians. I’m saying the by-product can even be from the gram sabha.
Kamat: All those villagers also unanimously say they want that project. Then what to do?
Rebello: And maybe the villagers are genuinely interested in the project because there is a level of unemployment in the village, there is low socio-economic status.
Raiturkar: Regarding the Tiracol issue, it has happened only because the regional plan does not show proper data. The Regional plan has not shown the data of agricultural land, communidade land or tenanted land, which you can get from the survey plan.
Herald: Are you saying it’s a specific reference to Tiracol or generally?
Kamat: What he’s saying is that these agricultural or tenanted lands have to be taken care of at the time of issuing sanad. Tenanted land cannot be converted. It is the decision of the courts. Whoever gives the conversion sanad has to verify whether it is tenanted land or not. The sanad does not fall under the mandate of town planning act. The TPA does not take care of the sanad. The sanad is basically the revenue department’s subject.
Raiturkar: No, they have to see the zone. If the zone reflected is a tenanted zone, then conversion cannot be there.
D’Cruz: I think Raiturkar has brought up an incredibly important point. It is very good to map these communidade and tenanted lands, which we asked the town planners to do. So you know which is a no-go zone.
Herald: Coming to what has happened in the last two years. We are looking at the governor’s speech of March 20, 2012. In his first speech after the Parrikar government took over, he spoke about the regional plan and the very fact that it had to be de-notified. It is actually three years now. How is Goa lost because of there being no real effective plan?
Raiturkar: What is happening, nobody knows now. Some conversions, planning, permissions are given even on 2011 regional plan.
Herald: Oscar, where have we lost in the last three years?
Rebello: Fundamentally, we lost it the moment the whole draft plan and regional plan that was formulated was junked as a complete corruption scandal. Then the noise value just went up and we just froze the plan up completely. The builder mafia and the political mafia, the TCP – they took advantage of it, because now you don’t have all eyes that were there on the plan to really monitor and scrutinize this thing, which was the advantage we had at that point of time. Now it’s every man for himself, god-for-all. This was perhaps the BJP’s political strategy: to keep their flock happy. If we had a plan in place, with finite areas that said “these are red zones; you can’t go there; this is an eco-sensitive zone; this is an area that you can build on to conduct your economic activity”, and then we provided that impetus for economic activity into land that was earmarked for that, then we could have perhaps been in a better situation.
Herald: Dean, as a stakeholder why did you, or even people like you who were a part of it, keep silent for three years? You saw the government sitting on an exercise you were very much a part of. There were certain criticisms that can be leveled against you also, in the sense that probably not enough care was taken or pressure came in. My point is: should we blame everything on the present government or at the end of the day even stakeholders like you?
D’Cruz: Being a part of the GBA, we’ve asked for a number of meetings with Parrikar. Not a single one was given.
Rebello: We were just used for political purposes to come to power in 2012. Then we were converted into enemies of the state. That was the only conversion that has taken place.
The concluding part where the panelists talk of solutions will be carried in tomorrow’s edition.
