PANAJI
Town and Country Planning Minister Vishwajit Rane on Monday said all the proposals for change of land use approved under section 16B of the Town and Country Planning Act will be reviewed by a committee headed by Chief Town Planner (Administration) James Mathew.
The Mathew-headed committee will also have CTP (Planning) Rajesh Naik and “other members” and will submit its report to the TCP Board within 45 days, Rane said.
The controversial section 16B was introduced in the T&CP Act in mid-2018, piloted by Goa Forward Party legislator Vijai Sardesai when he was TCP minister in the regime of the late Manohar Parrikar.
The amendment has been challenged before the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court which has by an interim order ruled that all decisions under the proviso will be subject to the final outcome of the petition and the applicants will not be entitled to seek any relief in retrospect.
In effect, the move to review all the proposals under this controversial section 16B of the TCP Act announced by Rane will put under the scanner land-use changes approved during the tenures of both Chief Minister Pramod Sawant as well as his predecessor the late Manohar Parrikar.
Interestingly, hours after Rane announced the slew of changes in the TCP department’s functioning, the late Parrikar’s son Utpal Parrikar took to micro-blogging site Twitter to praise the decisions.
“Decision taken by TCP minister @visrane especially 21 days limit for file clearance is a good step. It will help reduce corruption and fits with mantra of “minimum government maximum governance” given by PM @narendramodi. More needs to be done to reduce govt. in day to day life,” Parrikar Jr said in the tweet.
While Sardesai was the TCP minister and chairman of the TCP Board during Parrikar’s tenure, former deputy chief minister Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar donned the mantle in Sawant’s tenure in the previous term.
