Abooming construction business is robbing whatever opens spaces and greenpatches left in Margao and converting the commercial city into one big concretejungle.
Thesuburbs of Borda, Gogol, Aquem, Housing Board, Navelim and parts of Nuvem arecramped with constructions. Cases of hill cutting violations and land filling arerampant.
“Hillcutting is rampant in South Goa. No stop-orders are issued against theviolation or rather stop orders are issued and work starts again even as TCPturns a blind eye,” said Village Groups of Goa member Carmen de Miranda.
TCPdisallows all hill cutting and land filling under the Town and Country PlanningAct, under Section 17 A, which permits hill cutting only up to 90 cms with a 25degree gradient and does not permit land filling of water bodies andagriculture fields of more than 50 cms.
“Afew years back, the Congress government started a flying squad that would lookinto complaints of hill cutting. This flying squad is headed by the DeputyCollector D M Redkar and has a member of the SGPDA and TCP. But this squad hasfailed to stop a single incident of hill cutting or land filling along the coastalbelt or in parts of Nuvem,” said Jose Filipe Ferriera whose been battling hillcutting violations in various courts in Goa.
“Insome cases a police case is registered for violations of 17A but these casesrot in the High Court, even as developers continue to violate laws. Theseprojects later end up getting NOCs and occupancy,” Ferriera stated further.
SeniorTown Planner, P A Surlakar pointed out that the department finds it difficultto look into violations and monitor entire Salcete, especially Margao.
Hefurther said that TCP has streamlined all hill cutting permissions to begranted by the Chief Town Planner and created a single window clearance, exceptfor Margao. The South Goa Planning and Development Authority issuesconstruction licences and permissions for hill cutting in the case of Margao.
