Re: [Goanet] COLUMN: Who Changed our Regional Plan?
The Goa government does not operate on emotions, but it exploits emotions when needed. Governance is not about creative writing and TV soaps though governance can inspire such writings and TV serials. The government is guided by the letter of the law. So, who changed whose Regional Plan? The RP in Goa is the product of the Goa Town and Country Planning Act of 1975. The Chief Town Planner is responsible to prepare a RP every 10 years and present it to the government. So, what do we mean when we say ' who changed our RP'? The CTP has all authority to revise the draft RP after inviting comments from the public. So, what do we mean by " the final RP2021 has deviated from the draft RP-2021'? The law does not state about the need to invite further comments if any modifications get incorporated once the comments have already been invited from the public by the CTP. So, what is this talk about putting the final RP-2021 out for public scrutiny before notification? Someone seems to be taking everyone for a ride. Someone is playing to the galleries and exploiting the emotions of the goan people. Accusations of contradictions in any statutory process needs to be backed up by relevant citations from the laws. Statutory processes cannot be left to demands based on fiction of the imagination of creative writers and accidental activists. Let us stop bull shitting and admit that the activists have lost the case for the people, and that the gullible goan is equally responsible for allowing this to happen even despite repeated warnings. What we now see is just noise for the sake of noise. At the most when options run out the matter will be conveniently dumped in court and rendered sub-judice. The gullible public will be kept anticipating a favourable court verdict and activists will always point to the courts and claim that they can do nothing more. That would be the end of yet another story of negligence and deceit from liberated Goa by 'hacktivists' to the benefit of real estate and mining industry in Goa. Just add an 'h' to 'Save Goa' and it becomes 'Shave Goa'. Together we can definitely acheive more by ensuring that all the eggs are secured in one basket making it easier for hactivists to control opinion in favour of real estate and mining intetrests. Unity of goans assures control but division makes the propsects of hacktivists a little uncertain. The question every goan must ask is - who were these mid-wives that facilitated the delivery of such a treacherous RP-2021 once again? Even the draft RP-2021 was definitely not our RP. -Soter
[Goanet] COLUMN: Who Changed our Regional Plan?
Who Changed our Regional Plan? By Venita Coelho The RP2021 was released and already we have had several reams of newsprint telling us how wonderful it is. Congratulations and thanks have been handed out on all fronts. My question to all the journalists and opinion leaders who were so quick with their responses is this – have you even read the Final RP2021 document? How are you so sure it is good news without taking any time at all to analyse it, and when the plans for the two Talukas haven’t even been released? As the GBA starts the process of studying the final document, there seem to be several worrying issues. The biggest issue is the ways in which the final Plan deviates from the Draft Plan. The mandate of the State Level Committee set up to finalize the plan was simple. It was to take the existing Draft Plan, look at the village level plans that had come in, incorporate the suggestions made and produce a final plan. What they have done is to fling in some innovations of their own – which did not exist in the Draft RP2021 and which they had no business doing. None of these innovations has been opened to the public for their feedback or been part of any sort of participatory process. Most of these have not been adequately explained either. The first is the abandoning of the VP3 category. This plan has repeatedly been trumpeted as having ‘people’s participation’ and a key cornerstone to that claim was that villages had been allowed to choose the VP status they would like. Why has the VP3 category been dropped? No proper explanation. How can a category that was part of a Draft plan that had been notified (and so has legal standing ) be dropped? No explanation. When villages have expressly opted for VP3 how can this expression of peoples participation and will be over ridden? No explanation. The question begs to be asked - participatory planning or a compromise with the building lobby? The Final plan suddenly adds three new categories. Huge chunks of pink appear on the map marked as ‘Zone Plan’. There is no proper explanation of what a Zone Plan is. There is a second new category ‘Non PDA ODP areas’. Again there is no precise explanation of what this is or under what rules and building categories this will fall. The third and most suspicious category that has been added is Micro Industrial Development Zone. This sounds like it is meant to encourage small scale industries until you read the fine print. These will be governed by ‘a unique policy’. So this one could go either way. It could actually be used to encourage small scale industry - or it could be a nice little loophole to bring the SEZ’s back under another name. The Draft Plan was scathing about the effects of mining on Goa. It recommended that mining leases close to water bodies and other sensitive areas be phased out in three years. And that all mining be phased out in five years. This has gone entirely missing in the final notified RP2021. Instead we have two recommendations that sound suspiciously like they came from the mining lobby. The first is the recommendation that a new four lane ‘State Highway’ be built through the sensitive ghat area. What exactly is a State Highway? How is this different from the Expressway that is already planned? And who will benefit the most from a highway that runs straight to the most densely mined areas? If the Expressway is already being bulldozed in over people’s protests why do we need another State Highway? The second is the push to add one more rail line. Sounds like good planning, until you learn that in response to an RTI the Rail Vikas Nigam clarified that the line was part of a ‘port connectivity project’. Read ‘to transport iron ore’. These are just some of the issues that are emerging. It took us months of intense study to understand the implications of the Draft Plan. It was overall a good plan which would have done much to preserve and protect – but now it stands changed. The implications of the changes in the final plan are yet to be understood – do they water down the Draft Plan? Radically alter it? Undermine its spirit? It is very premature to begin the celebrations. On the other hand neither do we wish to throw out the years of hard work that have gone into getting a decent plan by a knee jerk reaction of rejection. All the various business lobbies would love a stay order that would allow them to continue with the rules that currently apply – outdated ones from RP2001. Once again the original demands of the GBA sound more and more like good sense. Put the Final Plan in the public domain for 30 days for us to give our feedback. Until the final issues are sorted, let the Eco Sensitive Zones be marked and preserved immediately. Let VP3 status stand for all the villages who opted for it until the entire plan is completed and notified to everyone’s satisfaction. Throw all the new innovations in this plan open for deb
