the goan I network
MARGAO
The Aam Aadmi Party has said reports of a presentation made by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), a Chennai-based agency engaged by the government to prepare the Coastal Zone Management Plan for the State, is to only hoodwink the people.
Questioning the timing of such a presentation only after sufficient heat had been generated by people’s anger and resistance, AAP Convenor Elvis Gomes along with Sidharth Karapurkar, Ramiro Mascarenhas, Rodney Almeida and Gilroy, who are spearheading the anti-CZMP awareness campaign along with NGOs, said that if the government cared for the views of the people, the ill-conceived plan would have been outright rejected as it is full of faults that its revision is nearly impossible.
Gomes cautioned the people to remain alert stating that the government would surreptitiously bring the plan back after a few cosmetic changes and those MLAs who oppose it would be bought over. “How is it that MLAs were not aware of the CZMP which was under preparation by an agency since the last two years?” Elvis questioned.
He said when for a few dollars more, people are waiting to switch parties and with the easy passage of the RP and nationalisation of rivers, it won’t be difficult for the BJP to exploit the vulnerability of opposition MLAs and get the CZMP approved. “But the CZMP and the already approved RP and nationalisation of rivers could prove to be a deadly concoction to sound the death knell for Goa,” he added.
