Karnataka   

GBA questions amendment

PANAJI: The Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA), the organisation which spearheaded an agitation against a controversial State Regional Plan a year ago, has protested against a recent amendment to the State Town and Country Planning Act passed by the Goa Assembly which seeks to give powers to the State and the Union Governments to undertake any public projects/schemes/development works which need not conform to the provisions of the State Regional Plan.

The GBA has demanded that the Government immediately withdraw or amend the said Bill (and the Ordinance it seeks to replace) to clearly define what is meant by “public projects/schemes/development works undertaken by the Union or the State Governments.” “The GBA expects an early response from the Government in this regard as otherwise it will have to reconsider its position in the Task Force, a State advisory board of experts, which is working out the Goa Regional Plan 2021,” warned convenor of the GBA Oscar Rebello here on Wednesday.

The GBA has representation on the Task Force formed by Chief Minister Digambar Kamat last year.

The GBA, which had also backed the recent agitation against Special Economic Zones in the State, feels that the action of the Government to amend the Act when the Task Force formed by the State Government itself is going through the process of preparation of the State Regional Plan 2021 is tantamount to the Government initiating a parallel process to bring in projects through the “back door” thus nullifying the purpose of setting up a task force for preparing a regional plan for Goa.

Elaborating on their concern, Mr. Rebello told The Hindu that “the words ‘public projects/schemes/development works’ undertaken by the Union or the State Governments’ have not been clearly defined in the Bill and could very well go beyond what is meant by ‘public projects’ such as roads, bridges etc.” Mr. Rebello quoted a recent case wherein the State-owned Goa Industrial Development Corporation sought to acquire private land in Cuncolim in south Goa at the request of Vigneshwara Developwell Pvt. Ltd,. a New Delhi-based private promoter, ostensibly in “public interest” for IT/ITES and other technology-based industry with “work, live, shop and play concept” and said that the GBA would not tolerate such developments.

If the Government failed to withdraw the amendment, it would send a wrong message to the people that while it (Government) had promised a well studied, participative and transparent regional plan for Goa through the task force, its intentions, in fact, were otherwise, said Mr. Rebello.

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