PANAJI
Almost two years after it was notified, the Goa government has finally updated its Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 2011 based on 1:4,000 scale and the same would now be forwarded to the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) for fresh approval and re-notification. The CZMP 2011, based on the 1:25,000 scale, was notified on September 6, 2022.
Notifying CZMP 2011 under the 1:4,000 scale is a crucial step ahead of drafting a new plan based on CRZ notification 2019.
Sources informed that after initial reluctance the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) has finally submitted the updated CZMP 2011 maps on 1:4000 scale to the State and the same have been found matching with the revenue survey plans notified by Goa. “NCSCM on August 8 forwarded the updated plans on 1:4,000 scale and they were found matching with the bunds as seen on the notified survey plans,” sources said.
Sources said that the plan was verified afresh based on 1:25,000 scale by the Land Survey Department, following its notification, and there were a lot of discrepancies, especially in the mapping of the bunds.
Despite several requests to NCSCM since January, they failed to provide the maps on a new scale for verification and the same was crucial for drafting of CZMP 2019, the process of which is underway, officials said.
After Centre’s intervention following an appeal from Goa government, NCSCM had agreed to submit the updated maps by May end; however, failed to do so and it was only last month that the maps were made available. “Once the plan is re-notified based on the new scale, people will be able to identify their villages and other structures in a more proper way,” sources said.
Sources said that until the CZMP 2011 is notified under the 1:4,000 scales, it cannot be provided to the National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS) to prepare the CZMP 2019.
The NCESS has sought the shapefiles of bridge, harbour, port, ferry, survey plots, municipal and panchayat boundaries with names, tenurial status of mangroves for removing the mangrove buffer from private land, list of islands, land use shapefiles of the approved CZMP 2011. NCESS has sought time till January 2025 to draft CZMP 2019.
