PANJIM: The Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) on Wednesday demanded to denotify the controversial Pernem zoning plan stating that there is no provision in the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act to keep the plan in abeyance.
The GBA further demanded to know since when the Union Home Minister became part of planning process in the State and to involve people of the State in the planning process as per the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments.
Addressing a press conference, GBA convenor Sabina Martins said that time and again the TCP department is not following procedures and plans are changed to suit the vested interests and making it difficult for the people to keep a check.
Martins questioned TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane’s statement that the Pernem zoning plan has been kept in abeyance till further instructions from the BJP’s Central leadership.
“Since when party’s central leaders became part of planning process in the State. Goa is not Union Territory (UT) and it has become a State. Will the Chief Minister and his Cabinet answer whether Goa is a Union Territory or a State? If the TCP Minister has no basic understanding then he should step down,” she said demanding that the locals should have say in the planning process.
Martins alleged that the government is bypassing the democratic process to meet the needs of outside investors. The actions of the TCP department has thus far been arbitrary, opaque and for the benefit if outside investors only. The TCP department is shirking its duty to the people and the Constitution by excluding them from planning and ignoring the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments.
GBA secretary Reboni Saha charged that the TCP department has been consistently violating the RTI Act by denying information to the public in what seems to be an effort to hide their process of decision making. The official RTI replies often mention that information is not with the department as documents are kept with the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the TCP Minister, and they do not know when it will be returned.
Saha demanded that zoning plan must flow from the master plan for Goa, and compulsorily involve the people through gram sabhas or elected councillors. It must physically and scientifically take into consideration critical zones such as command areas, CRZ regulations, environmental criteria such as slopes, and rainfall and watershed areas before placement of hard infrastructure. It must be guided equally by representatives with interests in agriculture, economics, social science and critically environment, so we don’t repeat mistakes of skewed development clustering, landslides and flooding the way of Himachal Pradesh.
The Pernem Draft Zoning plan is hurried, environmentally unscientific, full of errors and unavailable at all village panchayats for people to review. It ignores local development for wholesale real estate business interests from outside of Goa. The development has to be community based.
She said that arbitrary Notification dated August 9, 2023 allowed blanket increase in built up area to 20 per cent regardless of ground realities of road widths etc while, another Notification dated August 24, removed the same to provide ‘unlimited built up area’ as a corrigendum, defying logic and unheard of in any planning exercise. This will cause misery to the people of the State if left unchecked, Saha cautioned.
The situation is dire and probably a first in a democracy where the TCP Minister and the department, the board members and the steering committees are working against basic planning principles, and openly for real estate and speculative investors,” the GBA stated.
The GBA leaders appealed to the people of the State to come out and remind the TCP Minister to work for them and the state and not as a Union Territory with direct instructions from the ‘Ministry of Home Affairs.’
HC to hear PILs seeking quashing of sec 17(2) of tcp Act on Oct 30, 31
PANJIM: The two public interest litigation (PIL) writ petitions seeking to quash and set aside Section 17 (2) of the Goa Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act will be heard by the High Court of Bombay at Goa for two consecutive days on October 30 and 31.
When the matter came up for hearing, the court first posted it in the afternoon for hearing but the matter did not come up as the Court was hearing other important matters. Accordingly the court informed both the parties that PIL writ petitions would be heard for two consecutive days from October 30.
Two PIL writ petitions filed by the NGO Goa Foundation, the Khazan Society of Goa and the Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) and another by three public-spirited Goans namely Pravinsingh Shedgaonkar, Mayur Shetgaonkar and Swapnesh Sherlekar, are seeking to quash and set aside the Section 17 (2) of the Goa Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act. The petitioners have particularly brought to the notice of the Court the ongoing `illegal hill cutting, felling of trees and construction of an illegal road’ in the impugned zone change at Morjim in Pernem taluka.
Senior counsel Janak Dwarkadas representing one of the respondents Konidela Ramcharan Tej, Maharashtra Advocate General Birendra Saraf, representing the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department were present in the Court.
During the last hearing, the Court had extended time-limit for filing the rejoinder by the petitioners and Sur-rejoinder, if any by the respondents, on or before October 3 and to furnish advance copies to the parties.
The petitioners have challenged Section 17 (2) of the TCP Act as it does not provide for any public consultation and gives unbridled powers to the Chief Town Planner and the government to make changes to the Regional Plan under the guise of correcting errors and inconsistent zoning proposals in the Regional Plan.