The AITC came down heavily on Town & Country Planning (TCP) Minister Vishwajeet Rane, in a press conference held at the party’s office, at Panjim, on Friday.
Taking on the TCP Minister Vishwajeet Rane, AITC National Spokesperson Trajano D’Mello along with Goa TMC Joint Convenor Samil Volvoikar said, the TCP Minister is all out to finish Goan land by converting it left, right and centre. In view of this, he demanded to scrap all the draft plans that are waiting to be published and notified after the Lok Sabha elections, besides scrapping the Zoning Policy and Section 17 D and 17 (2) immediately.
D’Mello referring to the 182nd meeting of the TCP Board held on 01/08/2022, said “the TCP Board had decided that the Zoning Plan shall be prepared for Pernem Taluka and accordingly the preliminary work for preparation of Pernem Zoning Plan started secretly without consulting the local governing bodies, i.e. Village Panchayat (17 D). Moreover, a notification was issued by the government, asking the people of Pernem Taluka to submit their objections and suggestions to the Zoning Plan, where the people of the entire taluka agitated against the arbitrary decision of the government to prepare a Zoning Plan without taking them into confidence.”
Criticising the BJP’s double engine, Volvoikar said, “that in Goa the whole affairs are run by BJP’s main engine, which gives instructions to the second engine to convert the land of their choice as per the 17(2), and hence destroy Goa completely.”
He added, “The 17 (2) amendment is brought by the TCP to convert the orchid and agricultural lands into settlement area overnight.”
Slamming TCP Minister Vishwajeet Rane, D’Mello said that, “under 17 (2) the TCP Minister has vested power in himself to approve the correction of land zones anywhere in Goa.”
He added, “As the preliminary preparation of Pernem Zoning Plan was going on, at the same time the TCP Minister also allowed correction of the land zone under 17 (2) where NDZ, Eco-Sensitive Zones, Agriculture land were allowed to convert to settlement zones.”
D’Mello expressed surprise, as the Draft Zoning Plan of Pernem Taluka has been kept in abeyance, and it has not been scrapped till now, stating that it may be out in the open as per whims and fancies of the TCP Minister of Goa.
Further referring to the TCP’s above Board meeting, he brought to the notice that it was decided “the zoning plan shall be prepared for Kadamba Plateau” and was also resolved that “the board therefore deliberated on extent of the area to be considered for Zoning Plan and it was decided that instead of 300 mts., area coming under 1000 mts. of width on either side of Kadamba bye-pass, shall be included under Zoning Plan for Kadamba Plateau.”
Slamming the BJP-led government, D’Mello said the decision expresses that the area under conversion is extended from 300 meters to 1000 meters, in reality, it will allow the conversion of 80 lakh sq mtrs (approx) area and hence, this will be the biggest scam in one area only. Such arbitrary decisions will adversely affect villages like Chimbel, Curca, and Old Goa.
Reiterating TMC’s stand on the draft Zoning Plan, D’Mello and Volvoikar jointly demanded to scrap all the draft plans immediately that are waiting to be published and notified after the Lok Sabha elections. He also demanded to immediately concur an audit of the present Regional Plan, wait till the census data is released, and then start the preparation of the new Regional Planning Policy documents for Goa by taking into confidence local governing bodies, stakeholders, environmentalists, local activists for preparation of a viable, transparent, inclusive Plan with a bottom-up approach.
They also appealed to the Civil Societies, NGOs, activists and environmentalists, political parties to come together to oppose this amendment and to demand to scrap this amendment to protect Goa from destruction.