MARGAO
With the ongoing agitation against the Port limits in the draft-Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 2019 does not show sign of abating, Goa Forward Chief Vijai Sardesai on Thursday sought Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s intervention to remove all port limits from the River Sal in the draft CZMP and formally de-notify the Betul port area to prevent its repeated reintroduction.
In his note to the Chief Minister, the Goa Forward chief demanded that the authorities provide a genuine 60-day consultation window beginning only after full disclosure of village-wise maps and explanatory material.
He has further urged the CM to ensure independent technical support to village panchayats through open Gram Sabha presentations and to clarify the legal status and local consent for all jetties shown in the draft CZMP.
He said failure to address these concerns will only escalate opposition and erode public trust further, as he hoped the CM will act decisively to safeguard Goa's fragile coastline and the democratic rights of its people.
Drawing attention of the Chief Minister to the deep and growing unrest across Goa's coastal belt arising from the draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 20L9 and the manner in which it is being sought to be pushed through, Sardesai said the scale of opposition now visible in village after village is a direct consequence of a process that is opaque, hurried, and dismissive of democratic institutions at the grassroots. “The resistance from coastal communities is not against environmental regulation. lt is against a fundamentally flawed and top-down exercise that disregards past commitments, bypasses local self-governments, and threatens to reopen conflicts that had been conclusively settled years ago”, he said.
He added: “The most serious and provocative aspect of the draft CZMP 2019 is the reintroduction of port limits along the River Sal and in the Betul region. These port limits were part of CZMP 2011 and were removed only after intense public opposition. More importantly, in 2016-17, the then Union Minister for Shipping, Nitin Gadkari, had publicly and unequivocally assured the people of Goa that the Betul Port project would not be imposed on the State and that the port proposal could be shifted to neighbouring States. These assurances brought closure to a prolonged agitation and restored a measure of trust between the Government and coastal communities”.
He said the reappearance of port limits in the present draft is therefore not a technical oversight - it is a political provocation. It directly undermines the credibility of commitments made to the people of Goa and creates the legitimate apprehension that the CZMP is being used as a backdoor instrument to revive abandoned and unpopular port projects”, he said, while unequivocally demanding that no port limits be shown in the River Sal belt and that the Betul port area be formally and permanently denotified, so that this issue is not cynically revived in every successive coastal plan.
