The proposed Coastal Zone Management Plan has put the people of the State on a collision course against the authorities. Coastal planning is a very sensitive issue and the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) which is entrusted with the job cannot hurry with the exercise without a thorough debate involving stakeholders.
It’s an irony that a plan of such a magnitude is being prepared keeping the stakeholders and local panchayats in the dark. If this effort is genuine, there should have been transparency and data should have been shared with respective panchayats before drawing a draft. The aspirations of the people need to be considered first, rather than imposing a plan on the people.
Various sections, including the fishing community, which have been predominant along Goa’s 160-kilometre coastline have been completely ignored in the CZMP. Also ignored are Goa’s traditional bunds, known as wonder water gates of the State. These bunds have been the crucial barriers of defence against sea water flooding farm lands and by any measure should be a key component of the State coastal plan. Also significant to the plan are Goa’s major rivers “ the Zuari, Mandovi, Terekhol, Chapora, Galgibag, Cumbarjua canal, Talpona and the Sal.
The data sourced from satellite imagery cannot be solely relied on and in some cases may not match the contours of Goa’s coast. And this is where ground-truthing comes into the picture. There should have been transparency in this exercise in the first place and data should have been in public domain to cross-check its veracity, which is why this exhaustive exercise appears very suspicious.
The NCSCM has fixed public hearings for both North and South Goa on a single day -- July 7, which is a Sunday. But again, why not hold these public hearings on a taluka-level, if not village-level if there are genuine concerns to hear the people. Are one-day sessions going to be enough to put all public grievances and suggestions on the table? It appears that the NCSCM has no clue of how passionate Goans are about their land. Some of our village gram sabha debates and discussions extend till evening and in some cases have gone into the night. There are around 70 villages in South and over 100 in North which are affected by the draft plan, areas from which people are expected to be putting across their views. By holding these public hearings on a single day, it has put serious curbs on individuals or groups which have coastal stakes in both districts. The very intention of NCSCM is questionable here. This plan is about Goa’s coastal management and there is a lot at stake and cannot be rushed into like this.
Moreover, there needs to be clarity on the outcomes of these hearings. Are they a formality or a genuine effort to co-relate data collected with the ground realities? Lest we forget, Goans had bitter experiences in the past. The several objections to the CRZ 2019 notification and the ensuing protests fell on deaf years as the Centre bulldozed its way through. Will this plan too go the same way?
The NCSCM must hear the voices of Goa and undertake ground-truthing and superimpose it with its satellite image data. The collection of ground truth data will enable calibration of remote-sensing data and will help in interpretation.
