PONDA: Shiroda Village Panchayat special gram sabha on Thursday opposed the proposed jetty and raised objection to river bank shown in Port Limit of draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP).
Citing many mistakes, the gram sabha unanimously opposed the Draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP). The villagers, pointing out several discrepancies, demanded corrections to be incorporated into the CZMP suggested by the villagers.
Stainly D’Souza, a Shiroda local said, “People are unhappy over the fact that despite several suggestions and draft plan made by the panchayat in 2019 and sent to Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA), they are not incorporated in the draft CZMP.”
He said even expert was not made available to explain the plan today.
D’Souza feared that once the CZMP is finalised in wrong manner then not only the villagers, State government and panchayat will lose control over the village land and river. Under such circumstances, where to seek justice, he questioned.
Finally, the locals passed a resolution opposing the draft CZMP for several mistakes and demanded rectifications in the plan.
Sarpanch Amith Shirodkar said, “We are with the people.”
He said, “Except for the high tide line, the locals found out several faults in the draft CZMP and the resolution passed by the people with objections and suggestions to draft plan would be sent to the GCZMA.”
“The locals opposed to proposed jetty at Shiroda. Khazan land is shown in Port Limit. Similarly, jetty is also shown in the plan that is opposed by locals in past,” he added.
Similarly, the villagers pointed several discrepancies and submitted a memorandum to the panchayat asking to submit it to the GCZMA. According to the locals, the entire river bank is shown in Port Limit, when in reality, the river bank belongs to the local communities i.e fishermen since times immemorial and entire river bank be marked as fishing village and Port Limit need to be removed. The khazan lands and dry fields owned by the villagers are wrongly marked as khazan lands. Further, the bundhs and sluice gates are not marked properly. The entire river Bank is shown within the Port Limit.
The locals opposed the hazard line marked in the plan alleging that it is arbitrarily marked and need to be rectified in consultation with the villagers. The fishing area and fish breeding areas of village are not marked and shown in inaccurate manner due to which the fisherman are fearing of losing their livelihood in future. Similarly bundhs are not shown properly.
The locals also said that the mangroves that have grown in the fields due to breach of bundhs and lack of maintenance need to be shown with different legend as “mangroves in field” and should not have buffer protection since bundhs must be repaired and field restored to their original state. The khari, futtani nets and other fishing areas are not shown in the map. All the existing structures within CRZ must be mapped and demarcated on the draft CZMP.
The locals said that the existing ferry point is wrongly shown as jetty/ shipyard and has to be rectified immediately and that in this regard they have already filed objections last time and also resolved in gram sabha objecting to jetty/shipyard in the village.