Winds of change are blowing over the Town and Country Planning Department headed by TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane. The proposal to permit self-attestation of plans up to 500 sqmts built-up area by accredited architects and engineers that is expected to go online from May 1 is a welcome announcement. This will not only simplify functionality but also reduce the workload of the TCP and PDAs. Also welcome is the move to set a timeline for approvals by the TCP and PDAs.
What is however intriguing is the decision to review proposals for change of land use approved under Section 16B of the Town and Country Planning Act. The TCP Minister has announced that a committee headed by the Chief Town Planner (Administration) will review such proposals and has asked to submit a report to the Board within 45 days.
The decision to review these proposals throws open a host of questions, especially because the proposals were already scrutinized by the same government. The BJP government has been the constant between 2018 when Section 16B was introduced, and now. The board has till now granted provisional approvals to 1,431 proposals, and final approvals to 250 applications under 16B. If we may recall, the proposals under 16B were moved in 2018 during the regime of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar where Goa Forward’s Vijai Sardesai was the TCP Minister. Approvals were also granted during the chief ministership of Pramod Sawant with Chandrakant Babu Kavlekar at the helm of the ministry. In both the tenures, it was BJP all the way.
With no attribute given to this review, the motive becomes suspicious. It’s an open secret that there are major financial implications in these land conversions, and hence the argument that the review is solely triggered by a trust deficit in the decision-making of predecessors pales out. There is certainly more than what meets the eye.
Surprisingly, the new government is on the block making it look like a BJP versus BJP tussle. Ministers, including the chief minister, have started picking fault lines of works undertaken by ministers in the previous BJP regime. The chief minister has spoken his mind on roads, the sports minister on sports infra for national games, the tourism minister on tourism plans, and now the TCP minister on land conversions. Surprisingly, decisions under the leadership of Pramod Sawant are coming in for review from his ministers. Interestingly, the call to review proposals under 16B comes against the backdrop of a bunch of petitions pending in the High Court challenging the amendment to the TCP Act.
The TCP Minister may be within his right to call for a review, but he must come up with justifiable reasons for doing so and explain whether it is in the interest of the citizens of the State. Unless this is clear, there will always be suspicion on the motive and the beneficiary.
